


Broken Pieces

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Anxiety Attacks, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/M, Gen, Hell!Sam - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mentions of Dubcon, Multiple Personalities, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Soulless!Sam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:37:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean returns from Purgatory a year later but doesn't ambush his brother in Rufus's cabin. Nor does he find him with a woman in Kermit, Texas. Instead Dean finds his brother in a psychiatric hospital, diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, and he's determined to get his one and only Sam back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Over the Rainbow

**Author's Note:**

> Sam will have a supernaturally induced mental disorder, I'm not a doctor and I only have google and creative licenses to guide me on the procedures of hospitals. Please tell me if I got something wrong though, I really appreciate it.

"You've improved over the last year Sam, tell me, what led to the moment when you switched?"

Sam shrugs, his large shoulders rising and falling but he doesn't let go of his legs that are currently pushed up to his stomach. He looks like a giant six year old in time out, hell, he kind of feels like it. He's been doing great, switching out at times is normal but he had gone months without a single one. They were even looking into releasing him when it all just fell apart.

She's patient with him, she has to be, any sort of conflict and her patient could be set off on something she says or does and while that is beneficial in a controlled environment to get a closer look at what was the starting point of his disorder, she needs to talk to the core personality right now. Dr. Richardson adjusts her legs, pulling herself forward to give Sam a more focused look, "I have on the records that you had a visitor minutes before the switch, was..." she looks down at her notes, "...Robert Plant the source of this, Sam?"

Amelia expects Sam to shrink back or close off, he usually does in their conversations, but instead he just smiles. God, his smile is beautiful. She doesn't know why he's smiling but it makes her want to smile too, "I take it Robert Plant is a good friend of yours?" Sam had mentioned he'd had relationships with many women before in their conversations, but the way he smiles at the mention of his name - a name that doesn't share his last name - looks like complete love and adoration. Wouldn't be the first time she's had a bisexual or homosexual patient.

"Yeah, very good friend," Sam's smile slowly falters but his mood is better, "I was shocked to see him was all."

She taps her pencil on her notes and reads them, "you switched to your second personality."

"The Cowardly Lion."

Usually patients come with names with their personalities already attached, Sam, he was a special case and all of his alters wanted to be called Sam as well. To differentiate them Amelia used numbers, Sam used The Wizard of Oz, she's still not sure why. He only has two other personalities: The Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, as he calls them. She had asked that once, asked him who he thought Dorthy was and who the Scarecrow was but he had only shrugged. Amelia, with approval, pressed deeper into Sam's stability when he had named them using The Wizard of Oz to see if she can find any alternate personalities still hiding, but so far nothing.

"So, since you switched to the Cowardly Lion, that meant you were scared to see him, is that right?"

Sam shrugs again, Amelia wishes she could tie those shoulders down so she doesn't have to see him shrug anymore, but patience. She's patient.

"I was shocked, that's all."

"Sam, I can't help you if you don't talk. Whatever is on your mind, I'll listen. Whoever Robert Plant is, whatever he means to you, I need to know so I can help you."

Sam is silent for several minutes, nothing but the clock ticking on the wall to occupy the silence in the room. She lets him stay quiet, doesn't push, she knows Sam needs time to think what he wants and needs to say. They still have thirty minutes in this private session before he has to be back in his room and she doubts he'll stay completely silent for that long. He's done it before, but only in the early days of treatment, after weeks Sam had slowly gotten more responsive to her.

Finally, he speaks up and her hand goes straight to the pencil, "His name isn't Robert Plant. That's the lead singer to Led Zeppelin, one of his favorite bands."

"He used an alias?"

Sam nods, "he's my brother. Dean, the one I thought was dead for the past year."

Oh. No wonder he was so shocked to see him then, she writes it down in her notes.  "Why do you think he used a fake alias instead of signing in to see you with his real name?" She knows that Sam had an unhealthy codependent lifestyle with his brother, and what she assumes to be the leading cause of his formation of DID, other factors aside. Whoever his brother is, the use of a fake name doesn't strike her as someone who should be near her patient. And the fact that Sam switched to his 'Cowardly Lion' personality only reinforces that.

Sam doesn't say anything and rests his head on top of his knees, looking into the distance of her office. Amelia sighs, she knows this look, this is the shutdown. He won't answer this question so she moves on. "Explain what happened today. In your own words, recount everything you possibly can. I don't have any appointments after you and I can request extra time if you need it."

Amelia thinks, for a brief second, that he isn't. That this shut down is permanent and he won't talk until the session is over, but he picks his head back up and sets his feet back onto the ground. Her pencil is ready to write on her notepad as Sam opens his mouth to talk.

 

* * *

 

 

"You keep your nose clean, Benny," Dean says with fondness in his tone as Benny pulls him into a hug. Their bond having formed in the midst of war is something Dean can't ever sever, but wartime relationships and real world relationships don't mix well - and he knows this. Personal experience. He parts ways with Benny that night, the cold October night air raising goosebumps all over his flesh.

He steals a car in some run down motel on the side of an interstate, he doesn't feel bad when he sees the baby seat sitting in the back of the car, whoever the family was that stopped at that motel can find another way to their destination. Dean needed the wheels, he blames it on his survival instincts - still urging him to take take take to survive.

His cellphone died in Purgatory, lasted one day without any power to hook it up to. It broke sometime in the first month, he didn't know when, he was too busy fighting for his life to notice it until one day he pulled out the slab of plastic with a cracked screen and a useless computer chip inside. But he knows Sammy's phone number by heart, and he hopes that whatever happened to Sam in the last year no Leviathan schemes or anything else made that phone number invalid.

It reminds him of the day he got out of Hell, pushing quarters from the stolen car into some payphone by a shitty stop 'n' go. The number goes to voicemail, so he leaves Sam a message, "Sam, it's me Dean. I know you're probably out there busy lookin' for me, but I'm back. Meet me at Rufus's cabin tomorrow." He hangs up, his message is blunt and to the point. He'll explain what happened at the cabin, no need to get emotional over a fucking pay phone.

Dean sets up salt lines at the cabin, prepares to test Sam to make sure it _his_ Sam walking through that door, but Sam never shows. And that’s when he starts getting restless, his life has been nothing but nonstop fighting and walking and running for the past year and just sitting around here waiting for his brother to show is making him pace back and forth.

Calling up Sam’s number again, this time on a cheap cellphone at a gas station so Sam can freakin’ call back, but he just gets his voice mail again. And again. And Again.

The cellphone gets flung to the wall, and he’s on one of Sam’s laptops that he had left in the cabin - why was it left in the cabin? – and types in the address for the GPS site for their phone service.

Abilene, Texas. It doesn’t give him a street address, it’s the last known location of the phone before it was turned off and that’s enough of a lead for Dean.

He’s back on the interstate before he knows it, flipping through radio stations because holy shit he can now. Dean can listen to anything he wants instead of the creepy howls of Gorilla Wolves and chilled breezes of Purgatory wind. The radio station rabbles on about the election coming up, Obama versus Romney but Dean can’t muster enough care for something so mundane after his ass was almost mauled apart when it was Dean versus werewolf.

The car pushes the speed limit, he needs and wants to see his brother again so badly, but here he is again chasing him down just like he did when he popped out of Hell. Last time he was in some other dimension, Sam was drinking demon blood and fucking Ruby and doing god knows what while he was either the torturer or the victim on the rack. So whatever the hell Sam is doing now, it had better be him looking for a way to pop Dean out of Purgatory, and not guzzling down poison like its heroin.

Why the fuck didn’t Sam just answer his damn phone, he’s left him so many voice messages that he had to have noticed. Maybe he thought it was a trap, yeah, that’s what it could’ve been. Sam just didn’t trust the voice, maybe he thought it was some Crocotta spreading lies through the phone waves.

Dean runs through so many scenarios on his mind as he drives down the interstate, entering Texas, passing Dallas, and then entering Abilene. His body is tired but he needs to stay awake, anything can come around the corner and attack him so he needs to stay focused and find his brother.

There’s nothing abnormal on the local papers, nothing fishy online, no electrical storms, no cattle mutilations, no odd deaths. So Sam mustn’t be on a hunt here, must be doing something else then.

He’s searching phone books, calling the operators, talking to the local bars, trying to find anything tying someone to his brother. There’s absolutely nothing and now that he’s out of Purgatory, he feels exhaustion and sleep wanting to take him into unconsciousness.

That’s when he pulls into some shitty motel, walks in to find some teenaged kid manning the front desk, “one room,” Dean states. He’s not in the mood to strike up conversation with this guy, he wants a room, he wants to sleep, he wants to find Sammy.

But the fucker decides otherwise, “sure, you must’ve had quite the road trip huh?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Dean rubs his eyes and repeats himself, making sure this kid gets to the point, “one room. One bed.”

The kid gets the point and rings him up, “cash or credit?”

“Credit.”

His wallet survived the year in Purgatory, he’ll need a new one though, he’s not sure who clawed through the leather and it’s still sticking together but anymore opening and closing that claw mark is going to grow and eventually fall apart.

“Dean _Kobowski_?”

“The one, the only.”

The kid stares at him for a brief moment, “any relation to a Sam Kobowski?”

Oh, Dean is wide awake now, “what?”

He shakes his head and smiles, “sorry, nothing. It’s just an odd last name and we had some other guy who racked up quite the bill in here and destroyed the hell out of that room. Never paid it.”

“Is the room still like he left it?”

The teenager – Everett – now that he looks at the name tag, gives him a funny look, “yeah, me and my dad haven’t had the chance to clean it up or fix it so we just kind of locked it away. Rainy day project I guess.”

“That’s the room I want.”

Everett snorts a laugh, but it stalls when he sees that Dean is completely serious. “Seriously?”

“I’ll pay for whatever damages plus the room fee.”

“Sir, that’s almost $1,500.”

Ain’t his credit card, “do it.”

Everett gives him another funny look, slides the credit card through, hand it back and the key to Sam Kobowski’s room.

It was trashed, there were holes in the way and the bed was torn apart – someone had stuck a knife in there and sliced through the mattress. But that, that is definitely Sam’s clothes on the floor. There by the bed is one of Sam’s old red plaid shirt with the stain on the back, okay, so Dean was the one who caused the stain by dripping burrito grease onto it, but he knew that shirt anywhere. They don’t have many clothes in their dufflebags after all.

He looks around some more and doesn’t find any remnants of a hunt anywhere on the walls of the hotel. It looks like there was a fight here though, something mean and nasty came for his brother and for the first time since he got back he felt fear. There was a reason Sam wasn’t answering his phone, probably because he’s…no, Dean did not come back from fucking Purgatory to find a dead brother. That thought is pushed out of his mind and he continues to look around.

There’s no hint to where Sam had gone, but maybe the front desk kid did. Dean puts on his friendly con-man expression, “Hey, uhh, so what happened to this guy?”

“Went mental, that’s what.”

No, Dean is pretty sure he got into a fight, but he presses for more information anyways, “is he in jail?”

“Nah, the white coats took him. He’s uhh…last I remember they took him down in the Abilene Psychiatric Center.”

“Last you remember? When did this happen?”

Everett shrugs, “about a year ago. The guy was freakin’ mental, he didn’t seem like that at first but I dunno. People snap.”

“A year ago? You’ve left that room like that for an entire year?”

“Business is slow, we don’t have a lot of cash and we have plenty of rooms to give out. It’s not high on my priority list, not when my dad is sick.”

Dean nods, a fucking psychiatric center? He grunts out a rough “thank you,” and returns back to his room. It’s 11pm. Visiting hours are definitely closed right now, but he could try the phones, usually these places operate for 24 hours and the night shift crew don’t exactly have much to do besides doing their rounds. He gives it a shot.

Finding their phone number on the website he calls them up, a male voice answers. “Abilene Psychiatric Center, nurse Ford speaking.”

“Hi, I’m looking to confirm that one of the patients is still in your care at the hospital.”

“Sir, if this isn’t an emergency the regular operating hours are from-“

Dean cuts him off, doesn’t have time for this shit, not when his brother could be dead right now, “I just need to know if you guys have a Sam Kobowski in your hospital. Please, I just got off from a fourteen hour shift and just now got a chance to call you guys. He’s my friend and I’m worried about him.”

There’s silence on the other end, but he can hear fingers tapping on the keys, “yes, we have a Sam Kobowski here; thirty year old male.  He’s open to all visitors from five pm to six pm on the weekdays, four pm to six pm on weekends. I’m sorry sir, but the visiting hours are strict, you’ll have to find a way to get off work tomorrow if you’d like to see him.”

“That’s okay, thanks.” He hangs up. Relieved, his brother is still alive…but in a psychiatric center. Last time that had happened Lucifer was yelling in his head and Sam couldn’t sleep for days, all Dean could do was watch it happen before his very eyes. But Castiel fixed that, he saw it fixed before his very eyes, so whatever happened and whatever this is – it’s completely natural. “Shit,” he mutters and he throws the cellphone down on the torn bed.

He has hours to kill but too wired up to sleep. Dean lays on the ground, not needing the bed anyways, he’s been sleeping on the cold hard dirt of Purgatory for a year and this position only seems natural for him. Dean picks up Sam’s shirt and places it under his head for a makeshift pillow and tries to sleep. There’s an ache in his heart, worry that festers and grows for his brother, as sleep consumes him for the first time in four days.

Sam is allowed to have visitors, no matter what relation, which fares well for Dean since that means he’s not violent and is probably doing well in this center. Heck, Dean could probably sign his little brother out today and hit the road if he wanted to. He’s in high hopes, a very good mood ever since popping out of Legoland, he’s slept, took a shower, ate breakfast (god he missed the sweet sweet taste of a glazed donut) and is currently sliding his fake identification card to the secretary to the hospital.

“You’ve never been here before, sir?” The lady asks, her name is Sherry, a pretty name. He doesn’t have the urge to flirt though, his baby brother is in there and dammit, he needs him.

“No, first time. I’m here to see my friend, Sam Kobowski.” A friend, he doesn’t know what kind of files and history they have on Sam, but a brother coming out of nowhere? It would definitely set off the alarms, and his paranoia has been on high alert for the past year. His survival depends on it.

Sherry types something into the computer and smiles back up at him, “I’ll have to call you in and get Sam’s approval before I can let you inside. You can take a seat over there,” she points to the waiting room chairs.

She picks up the phone but Dean doesn’t sit, he paces. His heart is racing, whatever happened to his baby brother this past year, Dean can fix it. He’s sure he can, he can put his brother in that car of his and hit the road. Just like old times. As if Purgatory never happened and he can put it behind him and Sam can put this hospital behind him.

“Robert Plant?” Sherry calls and Dean is at her desk in a matter of seconds, “you can go in. He’s in the dayroom.” She smiles fondly.

Dean smiles back while she swipes her card and let’s Dean through the hallway.

The dayroom reminds him of the hospital he was in back when he was hunting a Wraith with Martin, he wonders briefly if Martin is still in a hospital like this and if he got any better the last time he saw him. But he drops that thought once he sees Sam, his hair is longer but his body still looks like he’s in prime shape. Strong enough to hit the road again and fight monsters side by side with Dean, and Dean smiles at the idea. Smiles at Sam.

He walks towards his brother, and finally Sam looks up and registers Dean. And Dean is expecting Sam’s beautiful smile to greet him, his big little brother to rise up from that chair he’s sitting on and wrap his stupidly large arms around him in a tight hug, but what he expects and what he sees are two different things.

Instead of Sam racing over to greet him, there’s a brief moment of confusion, then a glassy vacant look, and then he’s sliding back in his chair, panicking and yelling, “no, no, no” over and over again before the chair slides under him and he falls to the ground.

Dean stops in his tracks and watches, hell, practically everyone besides the nurses and guards are staying put and watching. He can see a couple men in white in the corner of his eye run up to Sam, holding him down while he writhes and screams under their forced weight.

The nurse who let him in is the one taking him by the arm and trying to maneuver him out of the day room, “Sir. Sir. _Sir_.” Dean finally looks from his screaming brother over to her, “I’m sorry, but you’ll need to leave.”

She keeps talking but he phases her out, her voice nothing but a low murmur under the screams and yells of his baby brother, who is currently being stabbed – fucking stabbed – with a needle and injected with whatever shit they have in there.

“You leave him alone!” Dean yells at them, but it’s just added noise in the commotion in the day room. A male nurse takes him by the arm this time, and more forcefully takes him back into the visitor room. Dean’s eyes are constantly on Sam as the male nurse leads him backwards into the hallway. He can see Sam’s body relax under the drugs, the male nurses in white dragging him up and walking him out of the day room and into the hallway for the patient’s rooms. Whatever the drug was, it’s keeping Sam conscious, but relaxed enough so that his eyes are focused on Dean – and those eyes, fuck those eyes were not human the way Sam stared back at him like a frightened animal.

He lost eye contact with Sam and is now in the waiting room. And Sherry is pulling him aside now and sitting back down on her desk. Dean finally looks down at her and listens to what she’s saying, “you’ll be placed on a minimum 72 hour waiting period so we can talk to the patient and figure out what happened. After the 72 hours, you’ll have no contact with the patient until he approves another visitation request or phone call from you,” she slides his fake ID back to him. “Your visitation is on file, and I’m very sorry about your friend.” She gives him a slight smile, “Sam did verbally approve your visitation when I called in, so…I’m not quite sure what happened.”

Dean doesn’t know when and how he ended up in the Impala, everything was sort of a drifted daze, and fucking hell. Seventy two hours? Seventy two fucking hours? And that’s the minimum. Fuck.

He slams his hand against the wheel of his Impala, and another slam for good measure. And Dean finds himself driving around the center, finding entering and exit points, because he’s going to bust his brother out. They can fix whatever this is when they are on the road, whatever this is, it can be fixed by Dean explaining where he was for the past year – he’s sure of it. Determined and hopeful. 


	2. Where Blue Birds Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two different personalities talk about the events surrounding Dean's comeback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will get the ball rolling but yeah, wanted to play with the two other Sams a bit.

The male nurse stays outside the door for this Sam, he wasn’t violent but it was something Amelia wants to watch in case it escalates into something more. It’s not a requirement, she has been in the same room with the third personality multiple times since he can disassociate at any time, but it’s something she just feels more comfortable to have when she can. He hits on her (which occasionally makes her blush, this Sam has absolutely no filter), tries to escape the office from time to time, but for the most part he just sits there and watches her with this bored look on his face until he thinks of something clever and snarky to say.

She knows which Sam she’ll be talking to today when the nurse leads him into the office and gives her a knowing look, “So, Sam. What brings you out today?”

“That worthless sack of shit kept crying all night so I just shut him up.”

Amelia begins writing down her notes under ‘Tin Man’ and looks back up to his vacant looking eyes, “so what did you do all night after you were able to get some peace and quiet?” This Sam is an insomniac, doesn’t sleep, she found that out about a month into treatment.

“Worked out all night.”

His muscular body hasn’t escaped Amelia’s notice, if he wasn’t her patient and fuck, if she wasn’t married, she wonders how those muscles would look without those hospital scrubs on. She keeps it professional, “do you know why he was crying?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Crying about his big brother coming back or something, god, this conversation is boring. How about we spice things up a bit, I’ll answer your questions for every piece of clothing you take off.”

“No,” she states bluntly and carries on, “you said _his_ big brother. Dean isn’t _your_ brother?”

Usually he just accepts the no and keeps on talking if she asks the right question, but today, Sam pulls his chair up closer to Amelia…he’s never done this before. He’s always respected the distance between them.

She’s about to call for the male nurse to come in and take Sam away when he softly places his hands on her knees and slides his hands forward up her thighs. Amelia watches as his large hands slowly move, a mixture of shock and arousal keeps her sitting there, letting the third personality’s hands move further and further till she notices that this Sam is starting to spread her thighs apart.

She jumps out of her chair immediately and walks around, keeping her chair as some sort of shield from Sam, and she knows she should be calling for the male nurse outside to take Sam away, “you’ve been here for a year and you’ve never done that before. Why now?”

Sam stays seated, there’s an aggression in the eyes, a fevered want that doesn’t have any emotional attachment to it. Just primal urges. “Cause I want to fuck you.”

Amelia keeps her eyes on him and stays standing, maybe if she turns it back to a professional question he’ll drop it: “Is Dean _your_ brother?”

The Tin Man sighs and slumps back into his chair, “you really don’t know how to have any fun, do you?”

“I’m married, Sam. And you’re my patient.”

Sam laughs again, no emotion to it and it sounds so fake, and he repeats, “like I said, you really don’t know how to have any fun.”

One more time and she’ll call for the male nurse, “is Dean your brother?”

He stares at her for several seconds, she’s still standing and she’ll probably sit back down if he answers, so he does: “Biologically yes.”

Sam fights the urge to smirk because he was right: Amelia is slowly walking around the chair now. “Then why did you say his ‘brother’?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Dean. He’s good at what he does and he’s useful but I get along just fine without him. Biologically he’s my brother but I have no attachment to him to call him that.”

Amelia scoots her chair back and she takes her seat, bringing the notepad onto her lap, her hands shake nervously as she writes down her notes, she can feel Sam’s eyes staring at her like she’s a piece of meat, “how do you feel about Dean possibly coming back and visiting you?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t feel.”

Amelia taps her pen on her notepad, she already knows this, there’s a sort of sociopathic nature to the Tin Man personality but she presses on anyways. She was never able to get an answer for this question from any of the personalities, but with Dean coming back from supposedly being dead it’s worth a shot to ask again: “so, what does Dean do for a living?”

“He’s a construction worker.”

She writes that down, finally, a job occupation for the long lost brother. She tries the next question that never got an answer before: “And what do you do for a living?”

Sam just stares at her and smiles, it’s a fake smile, plastered onto his face like a mask, “I’m locked in the looney bin.”

By the time the session is over, she hadn’t really gotten anywhere with the third personality, and it seems like Dean’s arrival yesterday had triggered a relapse in Sam’s psyche. All three personalities, including the core, had surfaced within 48 hours.

Sam is escorted away by the male nurse and she has quiet in her office now. Amelia tries to focus on her work, typing her notes and transferring them to the computer, but the lingering sensation of Sam’s hands on her thigh keeps her distracted.

What kind of fucked up doctor let’s a patient, a patient who is currently relying on another personality to cope with trauma, slide his damn hands up her thighs? She closes her eyes and berates herself for letting him go that far. She should have called for the male escort right when Sam pulled his chair forward.

But god, the way he looked at her, capturing her attention like a deer in the headlights. The way his large hands slowly moved up her thighs, the pressure of his grip. Amelia feels arousal spread between her thighs and pulls her attention back to her work.

* * *

 

Amelia places all her pens, pencils, sharp objects, into one of her drawers and locks it. Sam’s second personality is extremely unstable compared to the core personality and the third personality and she needs to be sure he has nothing to inflict self-harm onto himself. He’s done it before, the scars on his wrists and hands show it clearly.

The core Sam walks himself into her office today, knocks on her door and smiles at her, “Sam, hi. How are you today?”

She motions to the chair and Sam takes it, “Excited, the 72 hour thing on my brother is lifted today and I really want to see him again.”

“You’re not worried about disassociating again?”

Sam shrugs, makes an exaggerated frown, “no, it was just the shock of seeing him again when I thought he was dead. I’ll be fine.”

She honestly doubts it, and wants to know more about what happened three days ago: “I would like to talk to your second personality today, Sam, is that okay?”

She already knows he’s going to shake his head no and when he does she presses, “I need to know what your second personality experienced Sam, I know it’s difficult for you but you need to trust me. Okay? Nothing will harm you here.”

He stares at her for a few seconds and then slowly nods. Sam is silent for several seconds as his eyes take a dazed look and it’s almost instantaneous how quickly the second personality surfaces.

The Cowardly Lion shoots out of the chair and runs behind it, hiding, “it’s too dark in here. Too dark. It’s too dark in here.”

Amelia slowly stands up and walks to the window, keeping her eyes on Sam. Then she slowly draws up the blinds on the windows, letting the sunlight fill the room. She keeps her voice tone soft for this personality, “let’s bring our chairs over to the window. Come on.”

He’s holding onto the chair and slowly steps towards her, taking the chair with him. It’s their routine and it helps this Sam open up to her and relearn to trust her when she brings more light for him.

Amelia takes her chair and sets it across from Sam’s next to the window. He’s still not sitting and is instead peering out of the window, “I’m still locked in here. I’m never going to see the outside. I miss the outside.”

“The other two still won’t let you out in the yard?”

His voice is shaky and quiet, “He thinks I’ll freak out if I see a butterfly so he gags and chains me up.”

“He? Which one Sam?”

Sam starts pacing back and forth in the office, “that soulless dickbag. It is so hot in here, why is it so hot in here?”

“I’ll turn the A/C down for you.” He flinches when she stands up, but she slows her movement down and walks over to the thermometer and turns it down to 55 degrees. ”Is that better? You can stand under the vent if you like.”

He flops right down onto the ground under the A/C vent and sits cross legged under the cool breeze. She can see the sweat stains on his back and armpits and has previously written it off as stress sweat.

“Sam, do you know why I want to talk to you today?”

“I freaked out.”

“Why, Sam?” Silence. “Was it because you were shocked to see your brother again?” Sam shakes his head ‘no’.  “What went through your mind three days ago?”

He’s staring at the A/C vent like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen, “I’m not allowed to tell you. If I tell you, you’ll tell him.”

“Tell who?”

“The human Sam.”

This peaks her curiosity, none of the Sam’s have ever been particular talkative about their life story so this is definitely a new thing to push at, “I promise not to tell human Sam.”

Tears begin to slide down the second personality’s cheek and he gets up and paces around the room, “I don’t want to think about it. If I think about it then it starts to burn.”

“What starts to burn?”

“My flesh, it burns off. It catches on fire and I scream but nobody hears. Nobody ever hears! Nobody but Adam hears and I hear him scream too.”

Her eyes follow Sam as he paces around the room, crying and pulling at his hair and she wonders if Adam is one of his alternate personalities that have never been mentioned before, “Adam? Who’s Adam, Sam?”

Sam starts tugging on his shirt now, he’s dripping with sweat, “he’s my half-brother and he’s burning in Hell still.” To her surprise, he starts laughing but it’s more of hysteria than a humorous laugh, “we just left him in there to burn. Just keeps burning. And we aren’t doing a thing to stop it.”

Amelia doesn’t have her notepad with her today, didn’t want him to have access to any pens, but religious paranoia is something new for his file. She stands up from her chair and slowly walks towards him, keeping her distance. “Why do you think Adam is burning in Hell?”

“You’re not allowed to know.”

“How come?”

“Because then you’ll know the truth. And you’ll die because the truth always kills the people who know.”

Amelia shakes her head, “no, the truth can’t kill anyone Sam. You can tell me, I’ll be okay. And you’ll be okay.”

Sam spins around quickly and runs to the thermometer, wildly pressing the buttons, but the temperature won’t budge. Fifty-five is the lowest setting it will go and Amelia watches his frustration grow as the numbers stay the same, “Sam, we go over this every session. Fifty-five is its lowest setting. But I got an ice pack for you, you want an ice pack?”

He looks like a giant child, the way his shoulders slump and he nods his head. She grabs an ice pack from her mini-fridge and takes it too him, “come on, let’s sit down and you can hold onto the ice pack.”

Amelia sits next to him on the floor and watches him as he presses the ice pack to his sweat socked hair, “do you trust me that I’ll be okay if you tell me the truth Sam? It won’t harm me, I promise.” He nods and she asks the question again:  “Why do you think Adam is burning in Hell?”

“Sam dragged him there.”

“Why would Sam drag Adam to Hell?”

“Because of Michael,” Sam turns to face her and his eyes widen, “you can’t ever mention Michael. We’re not allowed to talk about him, Sam doesn’t know about Michael.”

“Is Michael another personality?”

Sam throws the ice pack against the wall, stands up, and begins pacing again, “I told you not to mention Michael!”

“Sam, if he’s another personality I need to know. It’s to help you. Will you let me speak to him?”

Sam starts digging through her desk and files, looking for some sharp object most likely, “I need a pen. Where are the pens?”

“If you want to write or draw I have crayons, do you want crayons Sam?”

“No, I wanna leave. I wanna get out of here!” He slams his hands against the desk and then his facial expressions soften and he begins sobbing, “Let me out please. I just wanna see Dean again. I just wanna see Dean. Let me see Dean. Please.”

She nods, this is probably as far as she’ll be able to get with the second personality but he did reveal more information that could help guide Sam’s further treatment, “you saw him three days ago, do you remember that?”

Sam shakes his head.

“Sam, when was the last time you’ve seen Dean?”

“A long time ago.”

It’s the same answer he always gives, he usually stops talking if she presses for him to be more specific but since he’s spilled so much already it’s worth another shot: “how long ago? How many months?” Sam remains silent. “How many years?” Still silent. “How many decades?”

“I lost count.”

“You lost count of what?”

“How many decades it’s been.”

The Tin Man and the core Sam personality gave their ages without a hitch but the Cowardly Lion had remained silent when she had asked. But this Sam acts as if he’s a frightened child but if he’s lost count of decades then maybe his mental age is older. “How old are you, Sam?”

“Really old.”

“Can you give me an estimate?”

“I think I’m 5,000 years old,” he’s tugging on his shirt again, waving it to get some air flow onto his sweat slick skin.

“You know humans can’t live that long, right Sam?”

“I know.”

“So how can you be 5,000 years old but you look like you are thirty?”

His body heat becomes too much, the heat is spreading and he just needs relief. He needs cool air on his burning flesh. His burning soul. Sam takes off his shirt, throws it on the floor and starts scratching at his chest and belly, clawing to get it out, “it’s my soul. It’s burning and it’s hot and it’s old and it’s broken. Get it out. Get it out of me please. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts-” He stops talking and stands there in silence for a couple of seconds before spitting out: “Holy shit he’s so fucking annoying.”

“Sam, do you know why his soul hurts?” She’s trying very hard not to look at his shirtless chest and keeps her eyes on his.

The Tin Man looks down and grabs his shirt off the floor, “ain’t got a clue. I’m freezing my ass off in here though.”

Amelia walks over to the thermometer and clicks the buttons to raise it back to 70 degrees, she can feel Sam’s eyes watching her movements as he puts his shirt back on. “Do you know who Michael is?”

“Yeah,” Sam drags his chair out from by the window and sits down.

“Can you tell me about him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’d think I’m crazy if I do.”

Amelia drags her chair away from the window as well and keeps it at the usual distance for the third personality, she can be blunt with this personality, “yeah, they might lock you up Sam.”

He gives her a vacant grin, “Michael is an archangel.”

Yeah that’s true, but she wants to know about the other Michael, “There’s not a fourth person in there named Michael?”

“Nope. Just the archangel.”

“Why can’t Sam know about Michael?”

“He’s a spineless sap who can’t handle the truth.”

Amelia nods, it doesn’t make any sense to her what Michael the archangel has to do with Sam and Dean, but it is more information than she had ever gotten in one session, “and what is that truth?”

The third personality says nothing and he blankly stares at the floor, a couple seconds pass and the core Sam emerges and snaps his head back up and looks around the office, “I’m tired.”

“You’ve had a long day huh? How about you go take a nap so you won’t be tired when you see Dean this evening?”

Sam slowly nods and stands up, he notices his sweaty shirt and damp hair, “and a shower…”

Amelia gives him a fond smile, “yeah, and a shower. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She wants to ask him about Michael, but breaking the trust between her and the other alters isn’t something she wants to risk, not when they have been so open today.

Sam exits her office without another word.


	3. The Tornado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam gets out of the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, had a bit of a writer's block and didn't know how to proceed so yeah, bit of a hiatus haha!
> 
> New story warnings, please heed!

Dr. Richardson used the term ‘black outs’ whenever Sam switches personalities but wakes up in another location or when time passes and he was never aware of it happening. They aren’t true black outs though, his body is still moving and his brain is functioning perfectly fine, it’s just another aspect of Sam takes over in the form of another personality. That’s how his doctor described it for him, making it a firm reality that this is his life now, that this isn’t some sort of supernaturally caused condition.

Sam wakes up in a hotel room, he doesn’t realize it at first but he focuses on the soft hum of the cars on a nearby interstate and he looks up at the crappy popcorn ceiling, definitely not his room in this hospital. His ceiling had been completely smooth there.

He slowly sits up and looks around at his surroundings, unsure of how and why he’s in a hotel room and not back in the hospital – he’s sure he was just there; he was just leaving Amelia’s office and heading back towards his room.

“Mornin’ Sammy,” Dean says at the nearby motel table where a range of weapons lay on the table.

There’s a cotton-y taste in his mouth, as if he had been gagged for hours and his wrists hurt, Sam looks down at his wrists but there aren’t any marks or bruises, “I’m in a hotel room.”

Dean picks up on of his glocks and quickly dissembles it, “no place like home,” his voice is harsher.

Sam realizes he’s staring at his older brother, for the first time in almost a year. He’s finally looking at him with no other personality pushing him down into unconsciousness, “I never thought I’d see you again,” Sam realizes he’s almost sobbing now. It’s almost pathetic.

He’s about to get up from his bed, go over there and hug his brother, when Dean just snorts, “well, ain’t gonna ditch your ass while you’re sleeping. Course you’d see me again,” Dean laughs and turns his attention back to the gun, “I found another case by the way, it’s over on the table.”

“Another case?” Sam feels nausea spreading in his belly, the urge to throw up and kick something, do anything to let out this _feeling_ of lost time growing inside of him.

“Yeah, probably a poltergeist,” Dean’s voice is brimming with excitement, “we don’t get many of those.”

Sam slowly rises from his bed and, with his hands shaking, he picks up the newspaper. He doesn’t look for what Dean is talking about and instead looks at the date on the top of the paper.

Two weeks.

One of his alternate personalities was fucking riding his body for two whole damn weeks. Sam drops the paper onto the floor and runs to the bathroom, throwing up whatever the hell his other personality ate last night.

Dean’s hand is on his back, rubbing circles on his tense back muscles, “you okay Sammy?” His brother wads up a ball of bathroom tissue and hands it to Sam. He wipes the remaining sick off and goes to rinse out his mouth under the tap.

Sam is silent for a moment, running through all the possible things he could do to explain to Dean what happened. On one hand, he hasn’t seen him in over a year but on the other, Sam has technically been with Dean for two weeks. Who knows what the other person in his body had done. Or if it would freak Dean out or heck, Dean would just give him that look, that same fucking look that he did when his brother realized his little Sammy wasn’t purely human.

“I’m fine,” he finally mutters.

“If you’re sick we can stay in town for a couple more days. I can call Garth and he can get someone else on the job.”

Sam tries to process the information, “Garth…right…no, I’m fine. It must’ve just been food poisoning.”

They’re in the Impala now, Sam didn’t even remember where he had placed it before he was locked into the hospital but it seems like one of the others remembered and brought Dean right back too it. He runs his hand over the sleek frame of their car, another thing he hadn’t seen in over a year, and Sam realizes now how much he misses the leathery smell that reminds him so much of home and Dean and his childhood.

During the silence on the interstate, Sam figures out that it must have been the Tin Man who took over control for those two weeks. From what Dr. Richardson describes, he’s not too different from himself. The other personality tends to be more blunt, focused on physical sensations rather than emotional, and has also made several escape attempts from the hospital.

“Dean?”

“What’s up?”

Sam chews lightly on his bottom lip, nervous on how to even ask Dean this question without raising suspicion of his condition, “Have I seemed different lately?”

Dean shifts in his chair to briefly look at Sam before turning his attention back onto the road, “same pain in the ass little bro I’ve ever known.”

There’s nothing in Dean’s demeanor to show that Sam had been acting odd for the past two weeks, and the way his older brother is acting – like he didn’t just black out for the past 2 weeks – makes him feel as if this whole thing was just a weirdly vivid nightmare. Some nightmare where Sam had lost Dean for an entire year and was locked in a mental hospital because his damn mind just couldn’t cope anymore with a life without his brother.

His mental reliability hasn’t been the most accurate thing as of lately, so he needs to make sure that it wasn’t a false reality, “Do you know someone named Dr. Richardson?”

“That dumbass doctor who kept you locked up in that place for a year? Yeah, I know someone named _Dr. Richardson_.” The name was practically spit out, as if Dean held a personal grudge against Amelia. Sam didn’t think that was fair, she had only tried to help him after all. “Why? You don’t wanna go back to that freakin’ _prison_ do you? I mean the way you described it before I broke you outta there it sounds like they were just keeping you there like you were Jack Nicholson or something.”

Oh, it was definitely the Tin Man then. Sam rubs his temples, as if he could feel the other personality moving around in his head. “No, I don’t. I don’t want to go back.”

He feels betrayed by the other Sam. They both knew that Sam was looking forward to seeing Dean again, holding him in an embrace for the first time in a year, and that’s when he realizes that he still doesn’t even know where Dean was for the past year.

And he’s sure, deep down in the other personality, he knows because it’s been two weeks and something like that just doesn’t get ignored for that long. But approaching Dean on the subject is a bit harder to do, there’s a feeling that wherever Dean was it was something big and something Sam shouldn’t have forgotten.

Tired, he places his head on the window of the Impala, watching the landscape zoom past. It was oddly calming amidst the storm inside his body. He’s curious, damn curious as to where Dean was for the past year, but Sam figures it will be something he can approach at another time.

They’re in Denver, Colorado when they stop and Dean grabs another motel. He drops his bags on his bed and then flops down onto the mattress with a sigh.

Sam follows into the hotel, placing his bags on the floor and sitting down on the bed across from Dean’s. He starts rummaging through his duffle bag and backpack, hoping to find some sort of clue to point out what his other alternate had been doing for the past 2 weeks. No receipts, no hand written notes, definitely no more journal like the one his doctor had been adamant about him keeping so he didn’t lose track of himself. There is nothing inside the bags but clothes, toiletries, and an almost empty box of condoms.

The fact that he’d already had sex with this many girls – or hell – even guys if that’s what his other personality was into, while he’d been out like a light for 2 weeks makes him want to feel sick. Like his body was being controlled and used by some other being without his permission. He feels his heart start to beat faster and a headache forming at his temples when Dean cuts off his train of thought: “Any word on Kevin?”

“What?” Sam’s attention snaps back to the hotel room and his brother who is currently staring at him, he heard what Dean said but didn’t quite understand.

“Kevin, check your laptop. Do whatever it is you do that tracks the son of a bitch.”

Right. Kevin Tran. Sam wonders what that teenager has been up to for the past year, while Dean was god knows where and Sam was – according to his other personality – being like Jack Nicholson.

He flips open his laptop, hoping to find whatever kind of files he has on Kevin and can backtrack from there. Dr. Richardson was right though, the Tin Man is almost exactly like himself. The tracking pattern and the codes he uses are the exact same that Sam himself uses.

There are tracked credit card numbers, phone GPS tracking numbers, and a bunch of other smaller details to put together a puzzle to place where ever this former advanced placement student is currently hiding. Sam has no clue why he would be hiding, not when he and Dean are his best bet for survival in a world full of angels and demons, but he pushes that aside and focuses on the task at hand.

“Last credit card tracking was in Phoenix, Arizona. That was three days ago.”

Dean sighs and groans, “no change then?”

Sam nods, taking Dean’s cue as this piece of information was something the Tin Man had already shared with Dean, “no change.”

“He’ll pop up sooner or later. Just gotta keep lookin’. Damn kid.”

A complete sense of loss and confusion takes over Sam again, black outs were manageable in the hospital. The doctors and staff helped him backtrack and keeping a journal of his activity – even in other personalities - made black outs seem like they were just like falling asleep for a little while and finding out you slept walk.

But this? This was a complete mess. He couldn’t ask Dean for information; he couldn’t risk Dean thinking that he’s just some sick freak who can’t even manage living in this world without breaking. God, this is all Sam does. All he does is break things and this time he has gotten so far off the deep end that his mind couldn’t even take it anymore and it broke itself.

Sam holds back another sob, he needs to keep control of himself. One slip up of emotion or one false move could send another personality forward and he would just be plunged into darkness.

Meds would help, Dr. Richardson had prescribed him meds and he’s not sure if it was just a placebo effect or they actually worked but he didn’t care. He needed them to make it through his hunt with Dean.

He just hopes that the Tin Man at least considered this and even though he broke himself out of the hospital against Sam’s wishes, there’s a faint sense of hopefulness that his personality did do something good for once and brought along his pill bottles.

There’s an action movie on, Die Hard, and Sam looks over and watches Dean. He’s currently lying up against the headboard of the hotel bed, a beer in his hands and fuck – when the hell did this even happen? A second ago Dean was just lying on the bed but it looks like his beer bottle is already almost empty.

Sam digs through his bags, faster and faster, panic spreading through his veins with each passing second that he doesn’t find his medication.

Dean takes notice and sits up, “lookin’ for a pair of panties Sam?” He laughs, but it falters when he sees Sam turn around with a deadly glare on his face. He’s getting up from the bed now, “Sam? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find my meds.”

“What meds?”

Sam flings the backpack against the wall, contents spilling out and landing on the floor, “I can’t-“

That’s when Dean places a hand on Sam’s shoulder, something firey and painful and oh god it hurts. Sam yelps him pain, falling backwards out of his brother’s touch and landing on the bed.

It almost would’ve been comical, the way Sam’s body bounced on the mattress, but instead Dean just stared at him wide-eyed. Staring down at Sam, who’s currently sprawled and shaking with his face pushed into the mattress. It was like watching a damn melodrama, but Dean keeps the snide comment to himself, something is definitely not right here.

Sam has been fine for the past two weeks. Hell, they hadn’t had any arguments of any kind after they hit the road after busting Sam out of that _prison_. He had never made any mention of medication and definitely never had these kinds of outbursts.

Dean didn’t know what to do, but he sat down next to his brother on the bed and softly placed a hand on Sam’s back. Wrong move.

Sam is pulling away, wide-eyed and almost animalistic. He’s huddled against the headboard of the bed, “don’t touch me. P-please.”

He’s never seen Sam like this, but he puts his hands up in the air in a surrender, he won’t touch Sam, “what’s wrong, Sam?”

“It hurts.”

Dean notices that whatever is wrong with Sam, it’s making him act like a confused and hurt toddler than a damn 30 year old man. It’s the same wide-eyed animal he saw back at the hospital, when he first laid his eyes on Sam. And now, for the first time, he realizes that that wasn’t just a brief shock of seeing his brother alive again. No. This is something he’s on freakin’ medication for. The same medication Sam was looking for.

He’s silent and contemplative for several moments before swallowing and asking, “what hurts?”

“It burns…when you touch me.”

Slightly taken aback, he remembers touching Sam many times these past two weeks and Sam had never done whatever this was, “okay, okay…how about we find your meds, huh Sam?”

Sam says nothing, just continues to look at him, watching his every move as Dean motions towards Sam’s bags which are currently open and clothes and other things are sprawled across the floor of the hotel.

He’s digging around in Sam’s personal things when he comes across an orange medication bottle, with a few pills still inside. Dean reads the label, not sure what these medications are for, the scientific name of the medications don’t ring any bells for what Sam is currently experiencing but it says to take two with a glass of water per day.

Slowly, he extends his hand out towards Sam, who’s still drawn into himself against the headboard of the bed and curled up into himself instead of relaxed. Sam hesitates but quickly grabs the pill bottle away from Dean and holds it against his chest.

“I’m gonna go get you a glass of water, okay?”

He fills up one of the crappy plastic hotel cups with tap water from the sink and slowly places it on the nightstand next to Sam’s bed.

Sam’s eyes don’t leave Dean once. He’s tracking every movement, careful not to let his guard down around him.

Dean watches, helpless, as Sam wrestles with taking the cap off the bottle. Whatever this is, it’s practically made his little brother into a weak child.

“Lemme take the cap off Sam.”

Sam doesn’t say anything and continues to try and take the cap off himself, “You gotta push down and then twist.”

He shoots Dean a glare but then goes back to it, following his instructions and getting the cap off. His hands are still so shaky but he manages to get two pills out, places them in his mouth, and then he drinks the water.

Dean doesn’t expect the medication to automatically snap Sam out of whatever the hell just happened, and he’s right. Sam sits against the headboard, fucking crying and scratching at himself, for several more minutes before he passes out into sleep.

Quietly and slowly, he peels the bottle out of Sam’s hand and stares at the label. Dean reads off Dr. Richardson’s name as the prescriber and the medication as ‘Xanax.’

He takes Sam’s laptop to his own bed and types 'Xanax’ into google. Dean still didn’t understand why they kept him in a damn mental hospital for a year for freakin’ anxiety attacks, not when Sam was clearly functional for the past two weeks. Dean looks over at the other bed, at his little brother who is passed out on the bed, lying the wrong way on the queen size mattress.

All Dean wants to do is move Sam around so that he can fit under the covers, but he can’t risk waking him up again, not when the medications had kicked in and calmed him down. And definitely not when his brother was practically shaking in fear because Dean simply touched him.

Dean drinks the rest of the beer left and places the bottle of pills on the night stand next to Sam. Panic and anxiety attacks or not, this isn’t something he can just ignore, and Sam needs to know that. He just hopes that they will be able to discuss this tomorrow morning without another outburst like this.


	4. The Yellow Brick Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place around 8x05, Blood Brother.

Dean watches Sam sleep as he browses the internet for another case for them to take, really, it should be the last thing on his mind after finding out that his brother is taking medication for anxiety – something he would have never believed if he didn’t see what happened to Sam just last night.

Really, he should have seen it coming, he saw what Sam did in the dayroom of the hospital, but he supposes wishful thinking got the better of him. The want and desire to get home from Purgatory to a brother who is happy to sit shotgun with him, driving down the interstate, doing what they do best.

Things had been good between them for the past few weeks, sure sometimes it felt like he wasn’t talking to his Sammy and some fake imposter but he shrugged it off to him still being wired from his year spent in Purgatory.

He realizes now, it wasn’t. Something is off about his brother. The sudden shift from a calm hunter to this scared _child_ currently sleeping on the hotel bed definitely set off an alarm.

When Sam shifts on the bed and wakes up, Dean finally registers the chirp of the morning birds and the morning light trickling in through the curtains. This isn’t something they can push aside, “hey Sammy, how you feeling?”

Sam looks at him with bewilderment, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, not the usual wake-up call Sam gets from his brother, “okay? I guess?”

Dean stands up and throws the orange pill bottle to Sam, who catches it. The events last night were a blur to Sam but Dean knowing about his anxiety meds makes his heart skip a beat.

“Why were you in that mental hospital, Sam? And don’t tell me they nurse Ratched’ed you again.”

He should tell Dean, he deserves the truth, he should be back in there in the hospital. Shit he can’t even remember what the other inside of him _did_ the last few weeks after breaking him out. But he knows that Dean wouldn’t understand, just like he didn’t understand the hallucination of Lucifer torturing his mind. It’s not curable, there’s no Castiel this time to come and save him from this, it’s his own damn head doing this to himself and only Amelia could help him battle it.

“I had some…issues, after you disappeared, Dean. And I got help from them. It got better, I just...sometimes I lose myself is all.”

Dean gives him that wary look, that unsure look as if he doesn’t believe Sam. “I need you to watch my back, Sam. Can’t just leave you back there doped up playing chess in a robe all your life,” Dean gives Sam a forced laugh and a shy smile, “but I’m also worried about you, man. I know this life can wear down on us, God knows I know, but if you’re not okay you need to tell me.”

“Okay,” he responds quietly with a nod.  Sam pushes himself from the bed and is about to place his pills back into his backpack when he sees the mess of his clothes and other things sprawled on the floor, “what the hell happened last night?”

“You don’t remember?”

Sam doesn’t respond, just stares at the mess for a while longer and starts to pick up the pieces of clothing, shoving them back into the bag before finally placing the pill bottle in one of the zipper pockets.

Dean is about to press the question again when Sam turns around and asks, “If there was something wrong with me...something incurable? What would you do?”

He smiles fondly, “No such thing as incurable, Sam. I’d find a cure.” Dean thinks it’s the right answer for a few seconds, but as Sam turns away from him with a grimace on his face and steps into the bathroom without another word, Dean realizes it was definitely the wrong answer.

Silently, he wonders why the heck Sam would be disappointed in Dean for him simply wanting to save his brother. He’d do anything for Sam, and if his forty years in Hell ain’t proof of that then he doesn’t know what is.

The shower turns on from the bathroom and Dean pushes away thoughts of his brother and tries to search for any clues towards Kevin’s location or any resemblance of a hunt again. But his search is interrupted by his cellphone ringing and his expression falls when he reads the name.

“Benny?” He asks in a hushed whisper, even though Sam wouldn’t be able to hear him over the spray of the water.

“Hey, Dean…you got a minute?” His voice sounds pained and hoarse, but Dean keeps an eye on the bathroom door while Benny continues: “afraid I messed up, Buddy.”

Dean’s heart speeds up, he put faith and trust on this vampire and brought him back to Earth and whoever this human was that Benny harmed was on him. But it can’t be that, anything but that, “what did you do?”

Benny forces out a harsh laugh on the other end of the phone, “No, man, not like that.”

The bathroom door opens and Sam gives Dean a puzzled look when he sees him on the phone, but he ignores is mostly in favor of getting some clothes on instead of dripping on the hotel carpet with a towel wrapped around his hips. He digs through his bag for clothes and hears Dean tell the person on the other end: “hold on, I got shitty reception over here.”

Dean mouths ‘I’ll be outside’ to Sam, who nods and goes back to fishing out clothes, as Dean leaves the room.

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as Dean steps outside and Sam is pulling up a pair of denim jeans, the Tin Man makes an appearance, sitting on his bed. Hallucinations, Dr. Richardson said, are a common symptom of DID but aside from Lucifer yelling in his ear after the dam in his head broke and the occasional hallucination in the early days of treatment in the hospital, he never had to deal with them.

“I want my body back,” the Tin Man says, it’s cold and emotionless. The Sam without a soul stares at Sam with dead-like eyes.

He doesn’t respond to the Tin Man and instead pulls a shirt on over his head, if there’s one thing he learned from hallucinations of Lucifer it was not to give them any lee way. Better to pretend they aren’t there.  They would get bored eventually and hide back inside the darkness of his mind instead.

Sam, aware of the other Sam staring at him with a predator stare, ignores him and turns on the TV to drown out his thoughts.

Instead of him going away, the other moves closer and sits right next to him, “Dean didn’t even notice there was something off about you until you got back in control again. I’m a better Sam than you ever would be.”

Sam turns the TV up louder.

Both Sam’s quickly turn to look at Dean as he opens the front door to the motel room, “jeez Sam, you going deaf there, old man?”

He turns the TV down and watches as Dean picks up his bag, “did you find a case?”

“No, I gotta go.”

Sam stares at the Tin Man for a couple of seconds, he wants to punch that dead smirk on his face, before turning to Dean, “what the hell do you mean…you got to go?”

“Which words are giving you trouble?”

“See? As soon as you’re the one back in control he wants to ditch your ass,” the Tin Man coldly remarks.

Sam tries to ignore him, but there’s a tightness in his chest growing, “we’re on a case, remember? The – the Winchester ‘holy grail’ case? Shutting the gates of Hell case? The finding Kevin case?”

“Yeah, exactly. And to close the gates of Hell we need to find Kevin first. And since his trail is colder than Jack Frost’s dick than for the time being, I’m getting some good ole R and R.” Dean walks out of the door with his bags quicker than Sam can respond, so Sam follows him outside of the hotel.

“Wait, Dean, seriously?”

Whatever happened last night, with Sam not wanting Dean to touch him or hell, even be around him, he thinks it’s better that Sam doesn’t get involved. Especially when it comes to Benny, who Sam would be able to take down easily, anxiety attacks or not. “You’re better at computers and tracking that kid so you got some research to do and I got some personal crap I got to take care of. That’s all.”

Sam still doesn’t even know where the hell Dean has been for the past year, and he hopes the question won’t sound odd and will give him some answers, “What personal crap?”

“Personal, as in my own personal business crap, I’ll be back in a day,” Dean shuts the Impala door before Sam can push into what he’s doing.

Dean drives and doesn’t look at Sam’s fading figure in the rearview mirror.

And Sam does what he does best and is looking at old credit card statements from a “Kevin Park” a fake name so no one would be able to track him but Sam has a decent trail on him to pick up Kevin’s new pseudonyms with relative ease.

Something moves in the corner of his eye, and Sam looks up. Startled he pushes his chair backwards, but he quickly calms down. The Cowardly Lion this time, but still just a hallucination, “take me back,” the huddled Sam mutters out.

He can’t go back to the hospital, not when Dean needs him…or a part of him, he’s not sure anymore if the Tin Man had a point there. But he can’t listen to _them_ , he can’t leave Dean, and yet Sam finds himself staring at Amelia Richardson’s driver’s license with her home address printed on it.

It’s Sam who breaks into someone’s car and drives down the interstate towards Texas, fully conscious of what he’s doing, and he’s the one who is knocking on Amelia’s door several hours later, mostly by speeding.

Amelia had been his anchor for the past year, their meetings in the office had broken through a lot of walls that Sam had barricaded against her. For the most part, she knows everything about Sam, aside from the supernatural aspects of his life.

So finding himself in front of her door of her house in Texas sounded like a good idea at the time, but as it swings open and her eyes lay on Sam, he wants to simultaneously run away but stay.

“Sam?” She slowly says, “what are doing here?”

“I’ve been hallucinating…again…”

Amelia’s eyebrows furrow up with worry and apprehension, she looks back into her house briefly and then turns to Sam, “come on in.” She moves aside for him, and Sam walks through the vestibule of her home.

It’s nice, and he never expected anything less from a well-paid doctor married to another well-paid doctor, and Sam continues down the hall with Amelia following.

She briefly looks at her home phone on the wall next to the kitchen, the thought crossing her mind to get the cops to take Sam back to the hospital instead of letting him linger in her own home, which _was_ supposed to be completely separated off from her patients.

Amelia watches Sam linger in the living room, “take a seat. Do you want anything? Water? Soda?”

“Water, please.”

She nods and grabs a water bottle from the fridge, hands it to Sam who is sitting on the corner of her couch, and she takes the one-seated chair across from him, “what happened Sam?”

“I’ve been seeing them both, just them talking to me.”

Amelia would be taking notes if she had been in the office, but nothing is in her lap except for her nervous hands, “Sam, let’s start at the beginning. Because we were all very worried about you when you disappeared. Where did you go?”

“I don’t know. I pieced some of it together…but one minute I was leaving your office and the next I was in a hotel with my brother and several weeks had passed.”

“You blacked out for several weeks?”

Sam nods his head and picks at the label on the water bottle, “I think it was the Tin Man. He’s been wanting to escape ever since I got here.”

She takes a deep breath and examines Sam, for the most part he looks healthy and well, but she knows mental illness doesn’t necessarily take a physical appearance so she needs to be careful so that Sam doesn’t feel unwanted, “Sam, I’m glad you’re back. But, I think you’ll be much better in the hospital instead of in my house.”

“I know…but I can’t. I can’t leave my brother.”

Amelia didn’t have to guess on that one, she had assumed ever since Sam’s disappearance that his brother had been the cause, “tell me about the hallucinations.”

Sam tells her about both the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion appearing only when Dean was out of the room, but disappears when he comes back.

She nods with understanding, Sam’s disassociation is linked to abandonment of his brother, too much reliance and codependency as an underlying cause for his current state, “what about right now? Are you seeing them right now?”

Sam ignores the question and continues, “Dean just left me, and I don’t know why. He wouldn’t tell me so I just kinda…came here you know? You’ve been the one constant in the mess of my life and I needed to see you.”

Amelia’s breath catches, she knows Sam didn’t mean it that way, but to hear him say that and to have so much reliance on her, it felt…good. And god knows it shouldn’t, not with a patient with DID and problems with codependency. All Sam is doing here is switching his reliance from one person to another, but Amelia can’t help feel want and desire towards him.

She swallows and collects her thoughts, on the clock or not, she’s a medical professional. “I know Sam, thank you for coming to me, it’s good to see you again too. But if the hospital is off limits…” she pauses for a moment, knowing that what she’s saying is completely illegal given Sam is a runaway and she _should_ be calling someone to bring him back right now, but she continues, “let’s give it a shot here?”

Sam’s eyes light up as he stares at her, hope on his face and his pink lips in a slight smile. Fuck, she wants to press her lips against that smile, and with that thought she looks away from Sam and down at her wedding ring. Kissing Sam would be illegal and wrong in every single way but she warily continues: “can you ask the Tin Man to come out? I would like to talk to him.”

The hope vanishes from Sam’s face, “why?” Jealously rises in him, first Dean prefers that coldless bastard over him and now Dr. Richardson wants to talk to him instead of the real Sam. As if the real Sam isn’t good enough.

“Since he was the one in control when you blacked out, correct? All I want to do is piece together what happened during those weeks, do you want me to record this, Sam?”

The jealously starts to disappear, Dr. Richardson makes sense, she always makes sense. So, Sam nods, “yeah.”

Amelia pulls out her work laptop and sets up the webcam on Sam, who currently is silently sitting there, in what she assumes is his way of speaking to the other two inside of his mind. It was hard at first, getting Sam to be able to communicate with the two other alters, but it got easier for him, and a few seconds later the Tin Man appears as Sam’s unconscious glazy eyes turn into a predator’s glare.

“I’ve been watching you,” he smiles that fake smile that never quite reaches his eyes, “you’re practically a swooning school girl after little ole Sammy here.”

She slowly sits down after hitting the record button on the webcam, trying not to let his words get to her, putting her professional front on as best as she can, “were you the one the escaped the hospital?”

“Me and Dean? Yeah. I’ve broken out of higher security joints than that dump, it was a cinch.”

“How come you didn’t break out before?”

The other Sam stares at her with curiosity, “oh, you know how we broke out. All I needed was someone from the outside with a stolen ID card to swipe the doors open and I was a free bird. Dean was more than happy to oblige.”

Amelia did know this, it was easy to figure out the how but where the patient went was a whole different issue, “You and Dean, right? Have you been with him for the past few weeks?”

“It’s habit really, he’s a good hunter.”

That was new, “he’s a hunter? Do you hunt?”

Sam realizes his slip up and grins, “yeah, and I’ve got a kill count that would impress even Charles Manson.”

“What have you been doing with Dean?”

“Hunting, mostly.”

For an entire year Sam had never mentioned he hunted animals, lightly chews on her lips, wondering if there is any connection towards Sam killing animals and what he is experiencing now, “and when Dean was supposedly dead for the past year, did he tell you where he was and how he got back?”

“Yes and no,” is his blunt and straight forward answer. Amelia raises her eyebrow when Sam is silent for several moments and then Sam takes that as a cue to continue: “He was in Purgatory for the last year but he hasn’t told me how he got out besides the fact it wasn’t built for humans.”

She was definitely not expecting this answer, there was some definite religious undertones to Sam, particularly with the Cowardly Lion personality, but the Tin Man had never expressed any, “he was in Purgatory? Like the place between Heaven and Hell?”

“That’s the one.”

Amelia pauses for a moment, collecting her thoughts and then presses: “Sam, what do you kill on these hunts?”

“Monsters. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, leviathans, all the things that go bump in the night.”

She needed her notes, that’s what she needed, but the webcam video will suffice for now and she can piece this together later. But with a severely delusional patient like Sam, one who believes in supernatural beings and religious paranoia, not breaking his trust in her is important so she indulges in his delusions, “when you hunt these creatures, are you the hero?”

Sam stares at her for several moments, his eyes darkening, before widening as the primary Sam returns, “what?”

Amelia turns towards her computer and hits the stop button on the webcam recording and faces Sam again, “what was the last thing you remember Sam?”

“You asked me if I wanted this to be recorded and I said yes.”

“Do they always leave you in the dark like that?”

Sam shrugs, “yeah, he thinks it’s none of my business what he does in my body. The other one…you know, ain’t too talkative.”

Amelia brings up the recording, skipping the first 10 seconds where the Tin Man calls her a ‘swooning school girl’ and asks, “do you want to watch it?”

He stands up from the couch and walks over, closer to her and closer to the laptop, “yeah…did he do anything? Bad?”

“No, but he did tell me a lot of things I didn’t know before.”

Sam crouches down next to her leg, eyes level with the laptop on the table, and she presses ‘play’ and watches for any facial changes on her patient.

For her own use, she had recorded some of their sessions on tape recorders and on webcams, but had never shared them for Sam to watch until he was ready too. She catches the slight flinch in Sam when he sees the other alternate use his body and say these things he doesn’t remember ever saying.

She continues to watch him, instead of the video, watching and admiring the curve of his nose and the angles of his jawline and notices him tensing up with the purgatory reveal.

There’s silence as the clip ends and Sam runs his hand over his jaw, “you weren’t supposed to know about that.”

He’s so close to touch now and she softly presses her hands on his shoulders, “it’s okay Sam. I know now.” She knows know that Sam, the deep core Sam, is suffering from these delusions too. Which is all the more reason she needs to take her hands off her patient, instead of letting him move forward and closer to her.

“Did you believe him…me?”

She doesn’t, but she will believe it for the sake of her patient’s recovery, she can’t break his trust and let him think that she believes him to be crazy, “I believe you.”

There’s a look in Sam’s eyes, something that she knows that Sam doesn’t believe her when she says that. Something like monsters isn’t something someone believes in without proof after all, but Sam’s phone starts ringing and Sam stands up from where he was crouched by the laptop and leaves the room, putting the phone to his ear as he walks.

Amelia starts to follow him, but Sam is out of her front door before she can say another word.

 

* * *

 

When he finally gets to the docks where Dean and some other person is located, there’s a feeling of relief coming back into him, that his brother is alive and well after that worrying phone call about taking down a vampire’s nest.

He looks from Dean over to the unknown man, who is raising his hand towards Sam now, “I’m Benny.”

Sam takes it, and with the hot humid night surrounding them both and the sudden dead like chill of the man’s hand resting in his own, his hand automatically goes for the knife in hooked into his backside belt.

And he doesn’t know whether or not he feels more betrayed over the fact that Dean ditched him to go off hunting with some vampire or that Dean felt more comfortable and at ease with another Sam instead of him.

Dean silently shakes his head, ‘no’, but Sam’s jaw still stiffens as he watches the vampire back away, pat his brother’s shoulder and dares to say to Dean, “I’ll see you later, brother,” before leaving.

‘Benny and the Tin Man are my damn _replacements’_ is the only thing on repeating through Sam’s mind as he glares at Dean.


	5. The Scarecrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long and is so short!!! I wanted to write it longer and actually have this part come in later (I had a different way I wanted to write this reveal) but I dunno, this is just how it worked out. Hope y'all like it anyways???

Sam’s introduction to Benny wasn’t something he had hoped for, but Sam is still sticking with him instead of running off, so Dean takes that as a good sign. He thinks it over as he munches on another potato chip from the bag.

Really, he doesn’t understand why Sam was so offended with Dean’s friendship with a vampire. A vampire that freed him from Purgatory to boot. They had parted ways with many creatures that were deemed worthy to live instead of killing them, so really, Sam’s anger was plainly unjustified.

Dean hopes that by the time he gets back to the motel, Sam will have a new case for them to take their minds off of his friendship with Benny. His wondering thoughts stop immediately when he sees a pedestrian on the side of the road. One who looks way too much like Castiel to be anyone else. 

He slams the brakes to a stop and double takes, seeing nothing but the woods on the side of the road and a bear statue. No man in sight. And definitely no Castiel in sight either.

After several moments, Dean finally shifts the Impala back into drive, heading towards the hotel and hoping his brain was just playing tricks on him. Which, he shrugs away as just post-Purgatory jitters. 

The Impala pulls into the parking lot of the motel, and Dean climbs out, taking a bag of groceries with him.

Sam’s lying on the bed when he enters, the same place his little brother was when he left. But his mind is still preoccupied by Castiel.

“You okay?”

Uncertain, Dean shrugs and takes off his jacket, sitting down at the bed beside Sam’s, “yeah. I’m good…you find anything?” He asks, gesturing towards Sam’s laptop.

Sam turns his attention to the laptop now, scrolling through news articles, “nope. I called Garth too, but he has nothing for us. Guess the supernatural are taking the day off.”

“Really?” Dean frowns, “vacation then. Let’s go to Miami, work on our tans, meet some chicks. It’s a much deserved break after a year in God’s armpit.”

Sam chuckles lightly, “Nah, it’s too hot down there this time of the year.”

“Then take off five of your shirts you’ll be fine.” Dean watches Sam chuckle again, glad to see his little brother’s mood lighten. “Come on, we’ll leave tomorrow.”

“You’re serious?” Sam’s eyes widen and finally break away from to laptop to stare at Dean.

He smiles and Sam groans.

They hardly ever take vacations and this was something he desperately needed. That feeling on constant restlessness still vibrates through his body, and the need to defend himself around every corner hasn’t stopped.

And while Sam is sleeping just fine in the other bed, Dean still can’t sleep. He clicks through the usual websites to find odd information, but nothing too out of the ordinary pops out at him. Midnight ticks by when a lightning storm starts up outside of the hotel room.

Purgatory didn’t have storms, he realizes now for the first time as he stands up from his bed to watch the patter of rain hit the window. It was so much like Earth, but at the same time so far from it. Dean remembers now, how Purgatory didn’t have a sun or moon, or even clouds. It was always in a constant night time state of limbo. There wasn’t time to notice the little things there, not with the gorilla wolves chasing you on one end and the hungry residents of Purgatory to chase him from the other end.

The peace ended when he sees a human standing on the other side of the street through the flash of lightning. Dean presses closer, squinting to see him again during the next burst of light.

And there was no doubt about it this time. The same dirty overcoat, the dark brown hair and beard, that was Castiel standing across the street. Another flash of lightning passes and the angel is gone.

Dean steps backwards, bewildered. 

“Dean? You okay?” Sam calls from his bed, his voice covered with the mumble of sleep.

“No.”

At that, Sam sits up from the bed and comes towards his older brother, and he softly asks, “do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s…Castiel, I keep seeing him.”

“Seeing him?” Sam wonders it over for a moment, “but you said he was in Purgatory?”

Dean wipes his eyes, the feeling of sleepiness finally taking over him, “yeah, that’s why it couldn’t be him…I gotta be seein’ things.”

Sam nods, “when was the last time you slept?”

“Umm…probably five days ago, I don’t remember.”

“We’ll figure out how to bust Castiel out, but first things first: you need to sleep. The human brain can only take so much before stress overcomes it.”

Dean sits down on his bed, following Sam’s lead, “you’re such a smart ass nerd.”

Sam laughs, “yeah, well, it’s my job to be.” He watches his older brother finally crash out on the pillows beneath his head before he turns away.

Fucking annoying birds and their damn annoying chirping, Dean thinks as they rouse him out of his surprisingly deep sleep. The sunlight trickles in through the blinds and he groans, sitting up on his bed.

He looks over to Sam’s bed but he’s no longer under the covers. The lights in the bathroom aren’t on either. He must be out getting food or coffee, Dean thinks, lumbering over to the bathroom to take a piss.

Dean sees a slumped figure on the ground of the bathroom as the door swings open, panic and fear quickly overtaking him as he switches on the lights to assess his fallen little brother.

He flips Sam over, taking the bruise forming on the right side of his skull, but he’s breathing just fine. Dean quietly laughs to himself, picturing his brother stumbling in the dark at night to the bathroom and tripping and falling.

He pats his little brother’s cheek, breaking Sam out of his sleep. Sam stares up at Dean, eyes unfocused, the left eye pupil is blown huge in a deep black circle and the other pupil is shrunken in size, accompanied by shot blood vessels making his right eye look red and sore. “Jeez dude, trip on your own feet?”

“Where am I?”

Dean chuckles, “yeah, up you go. You’re in the bathroom, Sam.”

“My name’s not Sam.”

His smile falters and Dean leans his little brother against the counter of the bathroom. This must be a joke of Sam’s trying to redirect Dean’s focus from making fun of him for tripping on his own feet, “yeah, you wanna be called Sammy now?”

Sam tries to push him away, standing by himself, “I have to get back to work, so please leave my office.”

“Your office?”

Sam almost rolls his eyes, and he takes a completely different stance, he steps out of the bathroom and sits down at the motel table where the pen and pad sits. Dean follows him out and looks down at the pad of paper. It’s scratched from the pen tearing into the pad of paper and there’s no sense of legible words on there. 

Dean’s eyes grow larger and he finally asks, “what’s your name?”

“I’m doctor Richardson.”


	6. If I Only Had A Brain

As Sam sits at the motel table, scratching the pen tip against the notepad with harsh scribbles, Dean digs through the motel room. Ripping apart the mattresses and digging through cabinets and dressers.

 

It’s a curse, he thinks over and over again in his mind, some witch got a hold on their location somehow. No luck finding any curse bags, Dean looks up and finally takes notice of Sam’s changed demeanor again.

 

“You lose the remote?” Sam chuckles, and then he picks up one of the pillows that Dean threw to the side and puts it back on the bed.

 

Dean is shocked for a moment, one minute his little brother is scribbling doodles so hard on the notepad and then the next he’s smiling and joking again. “You don’t remember what happened?”

 

Sam looks confused and taken aback, “no?”

 

The older brother walks quickly across the room and grabs the notepad that Sam had been scribbling on, “you’ve been scratching this thing apart with a damn pen, calling yourself a doctor.”

 

Sam takes the notepad and examines it, he’s quiet for a moment as he looks through the pages of paper, a dazed look taking over his face before snapping back, “dude it’s blank?”

 

He hands Dean the pad of paper again, and puts a hand on his shoulder, “you need to get some  sleep, Dean. It’s not healthy staying up this long.”

 

Dean did sleep, that much he’s sure of. He even remembers Sam waking up in the middle of the night and telling him to get some sleep…Dean stares at the back of Sam’s body as his little brother starts picking up his clothes and other items from the floor. It clicks now, whoever it was that woke up in the middle of the night wasn’t his brother, the way they spoke like a doctor, telling him to get rest as if it was some sort of diagnosis.

 

‘It’s my job,’ Dean remembers Sam uttering last night. It wasn’t his brother joking back with him, whoever that was really believed that Dean was their patient. 

 

“Fuck, Sammy. Fuck,” Dean cries out, he runs his hand through his hair, retracing back to when he saw his little brother in a damn mental hospital. Sam is turned towards him now, pausing and concern all over his face. “Why the hell were you in a mental hospital, Sam? And don’t lie to me this time. Don’t you fucking tell me it was just cops over reacting.”

 

His concern turns into fear, Sam sets down one of his shirts on the bed and looks away from Dean, “I’ve got a handle on it, Dean.”

 

“On what?” He needs to hit something, he needs to scream, this vacation they desperately needed halted because shit never stops hitting the fan.

 

“It’s a disorder,” Sam swallows as he thinks over how to word this so Dean would understand, “multiple personality disorder is what my doctor said I had.”

 

Dean’s eyebrows rise in disbelief, “multiple personality disorder? The hell,” he mumbles and picks up the car keys, “so what, one moment you’re Sam and then another you think you’re what? A doctor?”

 

Sam’s jaw stiffens, “no, there’s only two of them, Dean.”

 

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but he can feel anger taking root against the start of tears in his eyes, “Two? Yeah, what’s their names?”

 

“They go by my name…which is why I didn’t tell you Dean. I thought I had a handle on it and I’ve gotten better. Hell, you didn’t even notice you were with one for several weeks!”

 

Adding confusion to the cocktail of emotions, Dean asks, “Who?”

 

There’s some embarrassment over Sam calling his others by Wizard of Oz characters, but he supposes there’s really not much else to hide now. Dean knows now and Sam states, “I call him the Tin Man. He was the one who escaped the hospital with you and rode my body for weeks.” Sam laughs, but it sounds more forced and pained than amused, “and when I got back control, you didn’t even notice.”

 

Dean stiffly nods, looking away from Sam, “and who’s the other one?”

 

“The Cowardly Lion.”

 

Sam expects Dean to laugh, there’s no way his brother could believe this. It all sounds like an elaborate joke to him, two other people sharing his body? No fucking way would his black and white brother believe this number.

 

But instead Dean just says, “who’s the third?”

 

There is no third, Sam thinks, “I told you, there are just two others.”

 

Dean picks up the notepad and nearly shoves it in Sam’s face, “the third one, who was scribbling this shit all night. Calling himself a doctor? There’s more than just two, Sam!” 

 

“There is no third one,” Sam whispers. But Dean doesn’t seem to hear, flinging the notepad on the floor.

 

There were no more leviathans, no more fuss with angels and demons, only the road and he and Sam. His dream to hit the road again with his little brother, the one constantly replaying in his head in his free time in Purgatory keeping him sane, has been smashed. Crushed by something so human as mental illness, “I’m taking you back there.”

 

“What?”

 

“To the hospital…I thought once I was out of Purgatory things would just be the same between us. But it’s not.” Dean takes a hard look at his little brother, his right eye still red and sore from the fall and a bruise forming near his hair. Sam looked awful, not anything near what his brother had looked like before his tour in limbo.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam and Dean were a day drive away from Texas when Dean woke up from a rare peaceful sleep, only to find his brother gone from his bed again.

 

He softly walked towards the bathroom, opening the door slowly to see if Sam had fallen on the floor again, but nothing was the bathroom floor besides the cracked and grimy old tiles.

 

Dean groaned when he found that his Impala keys were missing and his baby was no longer sitting outside in the parking lot. 

 

“You better be bringing back some coffee and donuts Sam, or I’m gonna be pissed off that you took my car,” he hissed into the voicemail before hanging up and throwing his phone onto his unmade bed.

 

There’s a growl of some old engine outside her house, and it stops in her driveway. Amelia peeks through the curtains of the window to find a black classic car sitting there and Sam climbing out of the driver side.

 

She opens the door for him before he could even ring the door bell, “Sam, what are you doing back here?”

 

“I had to see you,” he stated, not even waiting for her to invite him in as he walked inside her house.

 

Amelia softly sighs and follows him into the living room, where they were before the last time they had met in her own home. “Still no chance I could convince you to go back to the hospital?”

 

“No…my brother, he wants me to go back there. But, I know there is no permanent cure for this. Longtime recovery, yeah, but being who I was two years ago? That’s not going to happen.”

 

“It could, Sam. There’s been reports of many people with DID who make a full recovery. It’s consistent therapy that helps, which you haven’t been receiving.” Amelia grabs him a glass of water and sets it beside him.

 

Sam stares at the glass of water and runs his finger through the condensation on the glass, “is that why my brother said there was a third one?”

 

“Dean said there was a third personality?” Intrigued, she grabbed one of the notepads by her laptop and started writing.

 

“There’s no third one. I don’t remember ever talking to a third one.”

 

“That’s what you’ve said before but you have named the other two by Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, Sam. It’s not farfetched that there would be a Scarecrow,” Amelia sits patiently across from him. “You became aware of the other two by therapy, Sam. The other probably hasn’t made himself apparent because you haven’t been here to get help.”

 

Sam hums in acknowledgement, “I know. Which is why I’m here. I just need to know who he is and me and my brother can hit the road again.”

 

“To kill monsters?”

 

Sam’s head snaps to attention and he almost glares at her, before catching himself.

 

Amelia adjusts herself and pulls herself closer to Sam on the same couch, “why did you name them the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion?”

 

“It just suited them,” he shrugs, “one doesn’t have a heart and the other is scared of damn butterflies for all I know.”

 

His doctor smiles, “okay, so how would you describe the Scarecrow?”

 

“Doesn’t have a brain, for one.” She nods and Sam looks at her, “I know what the other two think, sometimes. Like it’s not fully my thoughts, it feels like bits and pieces of a fading dream.”

 

Amelia doesn’t write any of this down, fully interested in what Sam has to say, “and you think because this one doesn’t have a brain, you can’t know what he is thinking?”

 

Sam nods and scoots closer to her, placing his hand on her knee. Amelia looks up at him, surprised. She expects to see that mischievous predator look on his face, the one that always seems to symbolize the Tin Man waking up. But this is fully Sam, her breath deepens and Sam softly presses his lips to hers.

 

She doesn’t move or return the kiss, only waits for her patient to back away. Once Sam pulls back, Amelia looks down at his large hand still resting on her leg, “Sam, you’re my patient and I’m married. I can’t do this.” She takes his hand and pushes him away.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean is in some stolen shit bucket, driving down an empty road at 90 miles an hour, he didn’t turn Sam’s GPS on in his phone, so it’s back to tracking his brother the old fashioned way with stolen credit cards and weird hotel check in names. 

 

“Hello, Dean,” a familiar voice says in the passenger seat of his crappy car. 

 

Shocked and scared, Dean slams on his breaks, coming to a screeching halt as he looks over to find a dirty Castiel sitting right next to him.

 

“Cas?” He states, wide eyed.

 

Castiel nods, “yes.”

 

Dean pulls the Impala over to the side of the road and steps out, “How are you here?”

 

Castiel follows him out and looks around, squinting his eyes as he examines the Earth, “I’m not sure. My grace seems…leashed somehow and I’ve been trying to reach you.”

 

“So that really was you? On the side of the road and outside of the motel?”

 

“Yes, where is Sam?”

 

Dean wants to curse the angel’s way of approaching topics, he still wasn’t finished with how Castiel got out of Purgatory, but he responds anyways, “I was taking him to a hospital and he bailed out of me. I’m trying to find him.”

 

“Oh,” Castiel replies, “is he sick?”

 

“Mentally, yeah, I think so.”

 

“I wish to help,” Castiel softly smiles to Dean, but he comes off more like a stinky dumpster diver than someone who could help Dean track down his brother.

 

“First things first, you need to look the part if you wanna help.”

 

Dean gestures to Castiel’s dirty and torn suit and overcoat and Castiel takes the hint. As Dean climbs back into the stolen car, Castiel follows him back in the passenger side seat with clean clothes and a freshly shaven face. He gives Castiel a quick once over, surprised at the quick change the angel just went through, “I believe this is better?”

 

“Yeah. And let me do the talking, Serpico.”

 

The receptionist was a different woman this time, thankfully or else this whole FBI get up probably wouldn’t have worked. But with a flash of their badges, they were allowed into the dayroom of the hospital.

 

Doctor patient confidentiality kept Dean and Castiel away from Sam’s private files, but maybe he could get information from the people that Sam had most likely talked to during his time here.

 

Castiel looks around the dayroom as Dean questions a patient, taking notice of where the file room is so he could poof in there, as Dean put it.

 

A doctor walks into the dayroom, fully aware of the two men in FBI suits standing around in a room full of patients in hospital scrubs. Dean finishes up with the patient he was talking to when he sees the doctor coming towards him and Castiel. “Doctor, I’m Agent Smith and he’s my partner Agent Kimmers.”

 

“Yeah? And can I ask what you two are doing here?”

 

“A federal investigation, Doctor?”

 

“Doctor Richardson.”

 

Dean’s tries his best to hide any emotion at the recognition of the name, “We just have a couple questions about one of your patients.”

 

“My office would be better suited for this,” Doctor Richardson says as Dean and Castiel follows, “may I see your badges?”

 

Dean and Castiel hand over their badges and the doctor closes the office door behind them, “you understand that there is doctor patient confidentiality. Only documents for this patient that contain no personal information during therapy sessions can be provided with a court order.” 

 

The doctor hands them back their badges and Dean nods, “of course. I just need the intake and  discharge paperworks for a Samuel Kobowski.”

 

“Sam Kobowski?”

 

“That’s the one,” Dean says as he pockets his badge again with Castiel following his movements.

 

The doctor looks from Castiel and Dean, tense and shifty, “we don’t have discharge paperwork for him. As you might know, he was an escapee from this hospital. He was nonviolent though…has he done anything to warrant a federal investigation?”

 

Dean pauses and then states, “murder. Federal investigation for murder. So, I believe murder is substantial reasons for his release of documents for the federal government.”

 

He watches as the doctor nods and proceeds to dig through the desk for a file. Doctor Richardson then slides the file over to Dean, “here, take a look.”

 

Castiel sits and waits while Dean opens the file, flipping it open to find a photo of a surveillance picture of himself and Sam in hospital scrubs, escaping through one of the corridors. “So, I finally get to meet Sam’s brother,” and then the doctor looks over to Castiel, “and his friend he has mentioned so much about.”

 

Caught, Dean smiles nervously and pats the file away back towards Doctor Richardson, “look…Sammy just kinda bolted on me, and I have to find him before he gets hurt. You know how he is.”

 

“Yes, I do know how he is. But do you? Kidnapping a patient with worsening mental illness? Coming in here and acting like a federal agent, who by the way, has no clue how subpoenas for murder case files actually work in a situation where a client has mental health issues.” Dean frowns but Castiel’s expression doesn’t change, “you don’t have to worry about your brother anymore, once the cops get here they can find Sam, and keep him very far away from you.”

 

Dean glares at the doctor and stands up and looks at Castiel, “let’s go Cas.”

 

Doctor Richardson stays seated, watching the brother retreat under the threat of police.

 

“What do you mean worsening mental illness?” Castiel says.

 

The doctor doesn’t say anything, only stares at him before continuing, “doctor patient confidentiality, Cas.”

 

Castiel brings out his angel blade and stabs it between the doctor’s fingers. Surprised, Dean takes a step forward, trying to make the angel back away from the human, but Castiel doesn’t budge, “what do you mean by that?”

Doctor Richardson stutters at first, full of fear, “h-he was originally only supposed to be here for six months.”

 

“Six months? Sam was here for a year?”

 

“Yes, once I diagnosed two personalities and help him manage his disorder, he was slated to be released from the hospital and only come back on a regular basis for outpatient treatment.”

 

Dean’s interest peaks, “what happened?”

 

Doctor Richardson stares at the blade, “I found a third personality.” The doctor looks from Dean to Castiel and then back to the blade between the fingers, “Sam is severely disillusioned, he believes that his primary doctor is my wife.”

 

“Your wife?”

 

The doctor nods, slides his hand away from Castiel’s blade and then shows them both his hands, “I’m not married.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m not your patient anymore, Amelia,” Sam says quietly, but he doesn’t make anymore advances to her.

 

“You’re here in my house, Sam. Asking me for help. That qualifies as a patient to me. My husband could be back from work any time now, I can’t. I’m sorry if I misled you, but I’m only helping you because you’re my patient, even if you’re no longer at the hospital.”

 

“Oh,  but I’ve seen the way you look at him though,” another Sam sits in a chair across from Sam and Amelia.

 

The Tin Man smiles, fake and big. Sam stands up at the couch, getting ready to leave, but the Tin Man’s fake smile drops and he shouts, “you stay right there. You wanted to learn who the third one is, didn’t you?”

 

“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” The Cowardly Lion mutters, standing in front of the window of Amelia’s living room, watching the birds chirp outside.

 

“Look at Amelia’s hand, Sam.” At the Tin Man’s instructions, the core Sam looks down and examines her hand, “you see anything wrong here?”

 

Sam looks at both hands now, no wedding ring on either hand. He stares at both of her small and smooth hands, confused. “Where’s your wedding ring?”

 

Amelia looks down as well, surprised, “Oh…I don’t know.”

 

The Tin Man smiles again, devilish and all-knowing, “Unlike us she doesn't seem to want to share your brain,” his false smile drops as quick as it was made. “I wonder what’s wrong with it,” he states, intensely staring at the core Sam.

 

Sam looks over Amelia, appearing as real as Dean or the other two personalities have. Her body feeling so real under the touch of his palm, the light from the window outside hitting her body perfectly and lighting her curves beautifully. But there's a humanity to her, wrinkles around her eyes and little freckles and moles scattered across her body. How can someone who's not real look so human, he wonders. “But my doctor…she’s been my doctor for an entire year. I don’t understand,” he pleads to the Tin Man.

 

But the Tin Man just shrugs. It’s the Cowardly Lion who speaks up, “I don’t like Dr. Richardson. He’s to mean. I like her. She’s nicer.”

 

Amelia looks around the room, finally able to see the different pieces of Sam. Each of them taking a different demeanor and stance around the living room. Confused and with tears almost forcing their way out, “No. I’m real, Sam,” she tells the core Sam and then she turns and tells the Tin Man, “I’m real.”

 

“Whatever you say, Scarecrow,” The Tin Man states, emotionlessly, watching her as she quickly rises from the couch and runs out of the house, halting as she almost runs out of the door and into a busy street, no longer a residential neighborhood, but a street full of different business and parking meters. 

 

Amelia had bolted out of some cheap diner, she discovers when she looks backwards. But she doesn't seem to pay much mind to wearing Sam’s baggy plaid clothes and torn jeans. The Texas heat pouring down at her as she smiles, feeling the heat and sweat and the hot pavement beneath her combat boot covered feet. I’m real, she thinks to herself as she walks down the road, passing by the black Impala.


	7. The Forest of the Fighting Trees

“We will find Sam,” Castiel says, trying to comfort the human.

Dean doesn’t respond, he slides his hand over the heated black metal of his Impala, which had been sitting on the side of the road for the past couple of days while they were out searching for Sam. There was only one parking ticket, thankfully the city wasn’t strict on parking meter regulations or else they would be sidetracked with the impound. He balls up the ticket and throws it on the ground, climbing into the Impala with suppressed anger.

The angel follows him in, sitting shotgun. 

“We won’t find Sam because Sam isn’t Sam right now,” Dean almost hisses out.

Castiel nods, “It is rare for a human to have separate personalities all in the same body, I have only seen it twice in my entire time as a Captain.”

The Impala roars to life and Dean drives away from shithole, Texas, not in any certain direction. “What causes it?” Dean asks, trying to understand his brother. The doctor had been unhelpful, threatening them again with police, and he is no more knowledgable about his brother’s situation than he was three days ago.

“It is psychological, usually trauma inflicted in a child’s early life leads to dissociation to find peace in a world full of pain and chaos. I believe you are more familiar with the term daydreaming, but more of an extreme form of it, I suppose.”

Dean stares at Castiel, full of disbelief, and then he looks back to the road, “yeah? Well, Sam is a thirty year old man who I’m pretty sure he can handle whatever the hell is causing this.”

Castiel’s eyes narrow and focus on Dean, “I am not omnipresent Dean. I don’t know what is causing your brother to be like this until I can examine him myself. Until then, you should keep an open mind.”

“I am keeping an open mind. Right now I’m chasing down my baby brother who currently thinks he’s a female doctor,” he scoffs, “pardon me if I have trouble believing this.”

“It is common for humans with multiple personalities to have one that identifies as the opposite gender. Maybe it would help if you stopped acting like this is ridiculous you would be able to locate her.”

Dean’s jaw stiffens and he asks, “her?”

“Yes, instead of looking for Sam you should be looking for Amelia.”

The human huffs, but plays along, “I don’t know Amelia, if she’s separate from Sam then she’d have different thoughts, patterns, things I can’t trace if I don’t know her.”

Castiel watches the Earth pass by slowly through the passenger window, he supposes it’s fast for humans, but 80 miles an hour is more like a stroll on the beach for him. Deep in thought, he watches the Texas desert pass by, “then, I believe you should treat her like you would with the people you meet on your cases.”  
That’s a good idea, Dean thinks, he nods softly and looks over to Castiel. His friend is absolutely clueless when it comes to little human things, metaphors and sayings and such, but he’s damn smart when it comes to strategy and tracking. 

The angel notices the human looking at him, and his eyebrows pinch in confusion, “what? Is that not a good plan?”

“No,” Dean smiles and shakes his head, “damn brilliant plan.”

“Then,” Castiel pulls out a file from his overcoat, “I believe this will help you.”

Dean looks down at the file Castiel pulls out, his brother’s false name labeling the beige folder, “holy shit Cas, when did you grab that?”

“When you went to the bathroom at the last truck stop I flew back to the hospital for the file. Nobody noticed,” Castiel states like it should have been obvious.

They stop at a hotel for the night, Castiel insisted that he could drive the Impala while Dean slept, but wouldn’t have it. “No one but me and Sammy drives Baby,” was his reasoning.

The files are spread across Castiel’s bed, which would remain unused anyways, and the hotel table, Dean pulls out a USB thumb drive and examines it briefly before plugging it into Sam’s laptop.

A window pops up and Dean clicks on ‘Play files’ and watches as the files start up. 

It’s Dr. Richardson’s office, the one Dean and Castiel had just left a couple days ago, and Sam sits in one of the chairs as the webcam on the computer records him. His hair is a little shorter, which Dean assumes because the thumb drive had a date about six months ago, “we’re going to start recording your therapy sessions now that we have located a third personality Sam. Is that okay with you?”

“My name’s not Sam, I don’t know why you keep calling me that, it’s never been funny Don,” the not-Sam says, his arms crossed and annoyed.

The doctor pauses for a second, as if he was confused, but he continues, “Oh, Amelia. I’m sorry, I must have had a brain fart.”

Dean’s taken aback, it’s his brother’s face and voice, but the entire demeanor and the way he carries himself is different.

In the webcam footage, Amelia looks around the office, seemingly bored with the decor, “are you going to be working late today? I just had one more patient tonight and then I’m going home. You need anything at the store?”

Since the doctor is offscreen and only his voice can be heard, it’s hard for Dean to tell how he is taking the new personality. Dr. Richardson replies, “no, I don’t. Thanks. Who’s your last patient for that day?”

“Sam, just a regular check up on his progress. I think he’s doing great, he’s a great candidate for out patient treatment for his disorder.”

“He is? You’re not worried about finding a third personality?”

Amelia pauses, thinks it over, “No. There have been only two for the past five months, and they aren’t even completely separate personalities. They still go by Sam’s name and have all of his memories. Really, I wasn’t even sure to diagnose Sam with DID since they weren’t completely separate.”

“What if there was a personality that was? And neither you or Sam knew about it?”

“Hopefully it won’t happen, he’s on a great track for recovery,” Amelia sits up, stops, and stares at something offscreen. Sam’s face no longer visible on the webcam.

The doctor’s voice asks, “what do you see?”

“There’s a stain on my coat,” Amelia says as she licks Sam’s fingers and rubs at his hospital scrubs, “hopefully it will come out, I’ll see you later.”

“See you,” the doctor responds, he spins the computer webcam towards himself, and the doctor sighs, “patient exhibits a new personality, completely separate from the primary personality. This personality believes herself to be the wife of a doctor, myself, and a doctor herself. I believe this attachment to me has been because of isolation in the hospital and the only form of human communication is through his doctor. Sam’s new personality is fully dissociative, seeing her reflection in the mirror instead of Sam Kobowski’s body and shares no memories or personality marks of the primary. I recommend Sam to have more day room access and increased time outside to avoid further isolation. End of session one.” The doctor states and the screen goes black.

Dean pauses it and looks over at Castiel, who has also been watching the video, “what the hell,” Dean mutters.

Castiel pulls up his chair, closer to Dean now, and places one of the documents down on the hotel table, “it says here that whenever Sam starts to feel alone or is in isolation, the personality Amelia comes out.”

Curious, Dean picks up the piece of paper and reads it over, wondering himself what else had been happening to his little brother, “I’ve been with him practically 24/7, he’s never been alone…” Dean pauses and looks away from Castiel and the documents, “crap, I left him alone when I went to go hunt with Benny.”

At the mention of the vampire’s name, Castiel stands, “you let the vampire live?”

“Yeah?” Dean’s voice grows rougher, more defensive, “a deal is a deal. He helped me out, I let him live. You have a problem with that?”

The angel’s stern face doesn’t change but he states, “no. We have more important issues,” Castiel says and pulls up another paper to read through while Dean continues to watch the video sessions.

Hours past before Castiel finds a possible clue about her whereabouts, he pulls up a paper and shows it to Dean, “I believe I found something of use.”

“What is it?”

“Sam had a friend,” Castiel states.

The friend was one Steven Waits, they found on the written statement for Sam’s potential release out of the hospital. The man and the angel walk up the stairs of a nearby apartment by the hospital, and knock on the door.

Dean is about to take out his lock pick when the door opens slightly, blocked further by a chain lock, and a young, dark skinned man peeks through, “who are you?”

“You Steven Waits?” Dean asks.

He hesitates, “you cops?”

“No, we just have to ask a few questions,” Dean says, putting on his best puppy dog eyes, a failed imitation of his brother.

Steven doesn’t budge and looks from Dean to Castiel, “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

Getting to the point, Castiel just lays it all out, “we’re looking for Amelia Richardson.”

The name registers with Steven and he slams the door shut, locking it behind him. Dean gives Castiel a knowing look, and the angel kicks it down with ease. Taking out his gun, Dean follows the angel into the small apartment. 

With a kitchen knife, Steven attacks Dean from behind and slices the knife through his arm, it’s not deep enough but Dean pulls back, giving Steven enough momentum to kick Dean down to the ground, “get the fuck outta my house,” he yells, about to kick Dean again before Castiel places two fingers on his head and Steven falls over to the ground next to Dean, unconscious.

Dean walks through the apartment, before stopping in front of one of the bedroom doors. He picks the lock quickly, and the door swings open. There’s nothing inside the room, at first glance, and Dean briefly turns to head to the next bedroom before remembering he’s not looking for Sam. “Amelia?” He asks, bending down to peer underneath the bed. Dean sees his little brother hiding under the bed, his eyes wide and scared.

“Amelia, right?” Dean asks with a false smile, “Look, I’m Dean. Sam might’ve mentioned me.”

Amelia doesn’t budge from out under the bed but she asks softly, deep in Sam’s voice, “Dean Kobowski right? Sam’s brother?”

Dean gently smiles, obviously fake, “look, me and Cas here, we just have a couple questions about my brother.”

There’s a pause, almost as if Dean is getting through to her, but she responds back, “just take whatever you want. Leave me alone, please.”

Out of no where, Castiel is picking up the king sized bed and moving it out of the way, with ease. Amelia stares up at him, scared and shocked. Bluntly, Castiel states, “we need to talk.”

She sits uncomfortably on Steven’s couch, with a body not her own and in an apartment that is not hers, Amelia can’t help but stay withdrawn and timid around the two unknown men. Amelia sees Steven slumped in the corner of the living room, “What did you do to Steve?”

“He’s just sleeping, right now, he have to ask you a couple of things,” Dean responds back, no emotion towards Steven or the personality currently occupying his brother.

She sits still as Castiel places two fingers on Sam’s head, reading and examining the brain, he pulls back and asks, “Amelia, what do you remember happening two days ago?”

Scared, she begins, “Well…I remember talking to one of my patients and the next thing I remember is walking out of this cafe. I tried to find my own house, but I don’t know what’s going on or if I just got the wrong street or what, but it wasn’t there. And my husband’s phone is disconnected…” Sam’s body squirms uncomfortably.

The angel looks at Dean, worry on his face.

“What?”

“Sam’s brain is currently in REM sleep.” Dean stares at Castiel, confused, but Castiel presses on to explain, “basically your brother is in deep sleep. His brain activity shows no conscientiousness.”

“But he’s conscientious right now. Walking and talking,” he replies, gesturing to Sam’s body, but with Amelia staring back at them both.

Castiel nods. “I need to borrow your belt, Dean.”

“What?” Dean asks, not obvious at all to the way his brother’s face drops, knowing the personality inside the body is a freakin’ woman and Castiel has absolutely no tact, “what the hell do you need a belt for, Cas?”

“I will need to examine Sam’s soul,” he replies. And after a moment, Dean slowly and cautiously slides his belt out from the pant loops and hands it over to Castiel.

Castiel takes the belt and looks down at Amelia, “I will need you to bite down on this.”

“Fuck you,” she responds back, Sam’s voice rough. Castiel doesn’t seem to take any notice to the insult, and softly presses the belt leather into Sam’s mouth. Amelia tries to move away, but Castiel shoves his arm through Sam’s belly, white light burst through the contact of angel’s grace and the human’s soul. It filters through Sam’s body, turning his veins into a more prominent red as Amelia writhes in pain. His teeth biting down on the belt.

The angel slowly takes his arm out of Sam’s torso, the pain receding and Amelia’s steady breathing returns.

Sam’s body falls unconscious, slumped back into Steven’s couch. 

There’s silence in the small apartment, as the angel retreats back to Dean. Castiel’s eyebrows pinch.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks, his eyes focused on the angel, needing an answer.

“It’s his soul. Amelia is just a small aspect of his soul, and somehow has conscientious power over the body. I've never seen this before...”

A sense of deja vu overcomes Dean, just two years ago this had happened before. Sam’s soul was locked away in Hell with some Robocop version of his brother up and talking on Earth, he remembers it vividly. And the memories start to match up with the Sam he had been with for the first couple of weeks after coming back from Purgatory. The way Sam showed little to no remorse, his eyes seemingly void of any personality, all the little things that Sam is but Dean didn’t pay attention to. Too focused on himself, too focused on being out of Purgatory after a year of being chased and almost eaten. 

The angel continues, reading Dean’s facial expression, “you must not blame yourself Dean, ever since returning from Hell, your brother’s soul has been a ticking time bomb.”

“A ticking time bomb?” Dean snorts, “what the fuck does that even mean?”

“It means that when your brother’s soul returned from Hell, it was damaged. All it needed was a small push before it…” Castiel pauses, trying to place the correct words needed for a human to grasp, “it broke. I believe the expression china in a bullshop is applicable?”

Dean moves away from Cas, sitting down next to his unconscious brother and he places his fingers on his throat. The pulse is normal, and Dean relaxes and he looks back up at Castiel, “so what, Dick explodes, we get sent to Purgatory, and my brother snaps?”

Castiel shakes his head, “he did not snap, Dean. His soul is simply broken. Tape it, glue it, stitch it, it’s not a mental disorder. There’s no recovering from this, no amount of therapy can fix a human’s soul.”

“You’re saying this is permanent?”

“Yes. Earth, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, it doesn’t matter. Sam will be like this even after death.”

Dean places his hand on Sam’s shoulder, paying attention only to his brother and not the other two beings in the apartment, “how many are in there, Cas? Did you see?”

Taking a quick breath, Sam’s eyes shoot open and he quickly sits up, staring around the apartment. The hazel eyes focus and take in Castiel who stands a few feet away from him, and the older brother who sits right next to him. Worried, Dean simply asks “Sam?”

Sam stares back at Dean and smirks, a false and slimy smile that never quite reaches the eyes, “well, if it ain’t Dorothy and his little dog, Toto,” he emphasizes dog when he looks back over at Castiel.


	8. Bang on My Chest

He’s not wearing any shoes in his mind, or his soul, he doesn’t really know what is what, he realizes.

Maybe, Sam supposes, it’s all just connected as he walks through the woods of his mind. It’s cold, but not too cold that his mind doesn’t warm with him a thick plush jacket. He’s wearing the usual, flannel and a t-shirt and some jeans he and Dean picked up at a thrift store for 2 bucks.

But, for some reason, his mind has forgotten to include the shoes. An odd thing, as his naked feet crush the mossy ground of the forest. It’s silent in these woods, no song of bugs chirping in the dark and hollow pit he had fallen into.

It’s always been some anonymous hotel room or Bobby’s home, or just a random cabin or a house of one of his memories, but never this. Never shoeless in a pitch black forest.

He wonders in his own mind for what seems like an eternity, wondering how to get access to a pair of shoes in his own grapefruit. That seems to be a thing for lucid dreaming, he remembers, once a dreamer realizes they are dreaming they can have control over their dreams.

It’s not a dream though, he gets it after he steps on another sharp branch laying on the ground and he cusses it out, “Really? If you’re really gonna keep me trapped here can I at least get a pair of shoes?”

There’s silence, it’s always been silent, but then there is a ruffling behind him and he quickly spins around to face it.

It’s Amelia, in her own body and not Sam’s borrowed flesh this time, “Amelia?” He asks.

“Yeah,” she sets down a pair of shoes, his shoes that he remembers is actually on his physical body, “guess I’m crazy too, huh?” Her voice sounds like it’s choking, tears are brimming on her eyes but they don’t fall.

Sam leans down and grabs the shoes and puts them on, “who’s out there now?”

“Tin Man,” she falls silent as she watches Sam tie his shoelaces, but after several seconds of shared silence, she speaks up. Defeat laced in her voice. “I’m the Scarecrow, huh? Always been?”

He looks up at her and stands, he’s so much more taller than her. He’s never truly realized it, since his mind, she seemed to always sit down in that therapist chair and just talks to him. “I suppose so…I’m sorry. It must have felt very real to you.”

“Looking back on it, I realize there are a lot of holes. Sometimes its very faded, but you know that feeling when you look back on a memory and you’re not really sure if it ever happened or not? It’s like that.”

“I just don’t understand how you can be a part of me.” Amelia stares at him, confused, as if what he just said insulted her in a way, “not that you’re,” he gestures to her body, “not me, but the Tin Man I understand. He’s the part of me that lived on this Earth while I was soulless and then there’s the Cowardly Lion who is all my memories of Hell but you?”

Amelia lightly chews on her lips, a nervous habit that Sam shares, “maybe I’m the you that kept things together after Dean died…or went to Purgatory.”

Sam adjusts himself and turns away, “is this why this place is a forest? Is this purgatory?”

“You don’t know what Purgatory looks like?”

He shakes his head, “no, but Dean described it for me.” Sam laughs, it’s a soft one, “he kinda said it reminded him of one of those paintball gun obstacles. Except without the paintball guns and just every single thing we’ve killed gunning for him.”

“Why are you laughing about that?” Amelia starts to follow Sam as they both begin to walk through the forest.

“Cause what I went through with losing him doesn’t really compare to running for your life for an entire year in Limbo Land.”

Amelia stops and Sam stops too, not because of Sam noticing that she stopped but it was like a link between the two. One starts, the other starts, and one stops, the other stops. It’s an odd feeling, like being connected together with puppet strings. “I know I sound like a therapist still, maybe that’s the intended part of why you created me but…you don’t remember what you went through when you lost Dean. Bits and pieces, yeah, but in your own way, you were sent to your own Purgatory too.”

“Is that why instead of the usual hang outs Tin Man sends me to it’s this place? This is my Purgatory?”

A small glimmer of light catches both of the eyes, as they turn around in synch to examine it. “Purgatory is hell adjacent, just follow the yellow brick road,” Amelia’s words seem to fade away.

Sam turns around to face her, but she’s gone, nothing but the small glimmer of light in the far away horizon of Sam’s mind is there amongst the forest.

He steps forward to follow the light, but feels another branch stab into his shoeless feet, “oh come on!”

* * *

 

“You know, I was practically celebrating when we shoved Sam’s soul back inside your body cause I thought we were rid of you, once and for all.”

Sam, the Tin Man, scratches his head and stands up. Far from the more timid and scared Amelia personality, this Sam stands up to his full height. It’s not that Dean has ever obviously noted it, but his little brother tended to hunch over so he didn’t seem to tower over anyone. But this Sam? His not-Sam? He towers over Dean, stares down at him with the blank and emotionless eyes, “I’m practically rainbows and sunshine compared to your mess of a brother Dean.”

“I’ll pass on the Timeshare Powerpoint, give me my brother back,” Dean practically seethes. If it wasn’t for this asshole in control of his little brother’s body, the knife in his hand would have been buried into his chest a long time ago.

Castiel steps forward, a much shorter man compared to Sam’s built, but his angelic species bundled down into such a tiny vessel doesn’t effect the way he sees Sam. He is an ant compared to a skyscraper to Castiel, “Where is Sam Winchester? The one who was born and raised in this body, not you who has stolen it for a mere year and a half.”

The Tin Man is silent for a moment, his eyes hazy as if he was deep in thought, then finally after a couple of seconds he snaps to attention again and looks over at Castiel in reply, “I don’t know where he is.”

Dean steps forward, “what the hell do you mean you don’t know where he is. He’s in your fuckin’ mind…or soul…whatever nuts or bolts are freakin’ loose up there!”

“When I say I don’t know where he is, that’s what I mean, Dean. You wanna talk to the Cowardly Lion instead? I’m sure his blabbering about ice cubes will make buckets of sense!” He seems to stand up even taller now, “I’m the one that popped outta this meat suit when Cas here knocked Amelia unconscious so you’re stuck with me for the time being.”

The older brother grits his teeth together, fuming. He knows this Sam is a liar, and a damn good one too, but he knows at this point he’s telling the truth. It was a free for all after Amelia went unconscious and it seems like the Tin Man was the one that grabbed the longest popsicle stick out of the draw. “So why the hell am I Dorothy and Cas a yappy dog?”

“Have you ever seen the movie?…cause I’m pretty sure you’ve never read the books.”

Dean rolls his eyes, another insinuation that he’s dumb because he doesn’t read books very often, “get onto it.”

“Dorothy finds herself tumbling into a different world and just wants to get back home. With the help of the good witch of the North, she clicks her heels three times and wakes up back in Kansas.”

“Yeah, thanks for the recap, you wanna clarify?”

“You returned from Purgatory and back to Earth through the help of Benny. And as much as Sam tried and tried, he wasn’t the one who got you back.”

Dean thinks it over for a moment, and it clicks, “Sam is the Wizard of Oz?”

Castiel, who has been standing between the two brothers in confused silence, finally says, “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

The older brother turns away from Sam and faces the angel, “it’s a movie, we can watch it later so you can catch up on why Sam is recreating The Wizard of Oz in his head. Maybe that’s cause it’s the only way for him to make sense of this?”

“That’s why I said I’m rainbows and sunshine compared to him. You don’t want to know what happened to your brother no more than he does. Why do you think I came back after Sam got rid of me the first time?”

He looks up and examines the Tin Man, it’s an emotionless thing but there’s still that layer of humanity covering the pit up that Dean can’t help but feel pity for. “Why is it just you and the Cowardly Lion in there? What happened to Amelia?”

Sam shrugs, “same place that Sam is in, I suppose. I’m not sure. When we…meet together, in his head, it’s always the same places. Different places depending on Sams’ moods, but they don’t change. If I had to guess, Sam isn’t in his mind anymore. He’s in his own soul.”

Dean’s brows furrow in confusion, “is that possible?” He turns and asks Castiel.

“Yes, a human’s heaven is simply them residing in their memories inside their soul. It’s pure happiness.”

The Tin Man shakes his head, “for a human it’s pure happiness. For Sam? His soul is cracked, beatened, burned. If he comes back out of there, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has another personality tagging along with him.”

His heart sinks, an empty pit in his stomach grows. He’s not Dorothy. Dorothy left the world that was a shit hole and woke up to a world that felt like home. Dean? Dean left the world as a shit hole and came back to a festering pile of it. He pinches his nose and rubs his temples, “I’m guessing you have no access to the soul train cause you don’t got a boarding pass, huh?”

There’s silence for several seconds as the Tin Man thinks it over, “No, but the Cowardly Lion does.”

Dean relaxes his arm and walks toward the Tin Man, “you are an emotionless dick bag that I can’t even stand being in the same room with.” The Tin Man’s face doesn’t change, only stares back at Dean with the same blank and unreadable expression, “but I know that you’re the part of Sam that is protecting him from certain things, and that right there is some sort of empathy for my brother.”

“The only reason I’m protecting him is because if he finds out what he’s not supposed to know, I die.”

That revelation peaks Dean’s interest, “why would you die if he finds out something?”

“He told me I would.”

“Who’s he?” Dean asks, his heart beating faster, afraid that he’ll find something else out about his brother that would completely shatter his world.

The Tin Man smiles and shakes his head, “you’re not supposed to know either.”

“Cause I’ll die too?”

“Especially you,” he states back, as if he was simply reading out of a text book.

Castiel steps forward and in front of Dean, “we would like to talk to the Cowardly Lion now, please.”

Sam stares at the angel, “you won’t get anything out of him either. He has the same job that I do.”

Before Dean knows it, Castiel places his hand on Sam’s forehead and after a couple of seconds, Sam collapses onto the ground, unconscious and next to Steven Wait’s body.

“Why’d you do that for?”

“We need privacy for what I have to do next, Dean. Not in some human’s apartment.”

Dean looks over at Steven Waits, nice guy for letting his friend stay at his place instead of calling the men in white coats for him. Maybe that’s why they were friends, mutual displeasure of mental hospitals. “Yeah, let’s go Cas.”

Castiel picks of Sam’s body as if he weighed no more than a piece of paper and then placed two fingers on Dean’s forehead. There’s a flutter of wings and Dean is back in their hotel room and Sam is laying on the bed already. “We can pick up the Impala later, but for now you and I have to follow Sam.”

“Follow him down the Yellow Brick Road?” Dean smirks.

Cas doesn’t get it, “no? We need to follow Sam and access his mind and soul. But his soul is shattered pieces right now, if I were to find him there it could take decades or centuries just to locate him. We need to speak to the other personality and have him escort us down there.”

“You wanna get the Cowardly Lion some courage?”

Cas’s brow tenses up again in confusion, “I haven’t seen this movie, Dean, can we stop with the references?”

Dean smirks and shrugs a silent ‘okay’.

“So how does this work?” Dean asks the angel, watching as Castiel looks down at Sam’s unconscious body.

He takes Dean’s hand without asking and before Dean can make any snappy comeback about handholding, there’s a flash of light and he and the angel are standing in Bobby’s home.

There’s no sight of Bobby, all his furniture is covered in white sheets. The picture frames are white blanks. Dean feels a pang of loss over the home and for Bobby. It’s merely a blurry reconstruction of Bobby’s home, like an old memory or a fuzzy dream.

The home feels real, Dean notices as he touches one of the picture frames that showcases a blank picture, but he knows its not.  
He follows Castiel through the living room and into Bobby’s study where his little brother sits in the darkness and stares at them both with horror-filled eyes.

Sam’s once puppy dog eyes are sunken and devoured by years and years of torture and darkness. Dean can relate, having felt like that for decades in Hell and the few months after his release from the pit.

This one is truly the one who remembers Hell, and all Dean can say to him once he sees him is: “Hey Sammy.”


End file.
